Anti-Utilitarians: Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche

on Motivation, Agency and the Formation of a Higher Self

by

Ryan Stuart Beaton

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirementsfor the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy

Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Toronto

© Copyright by Ryan Stuart Beaton 2011

Anti-Utilitarians: Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche

on Motivation, Agency and the Formation of a Higher Self

Ryan Stuart Beaton

Doctorate of Philosophy

Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Toronto

2011

Abstract

This thesis examines the moral philosophical commitments that Kant, Schopenhauer and

Nietzsche advance in their respective oppositions to utilitarianism. Though not always under that title,

all three reject the claim that promoting happiness is the ultimate end that we pursue, or ought to

pursue, through moral principles and values. Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche see this rejection

reflected in human nature itself. Each develops a distinctive conception of 'higher self,' or of higher

purposes already belonging, in some sense, to each of us, in accordance with which we ought to shape

our character. Self-formation, not the mere pursuit of happiness (whether our own or that of others), is

thus our true moral project. I focus on each philosopher's account of agency and motivation as the locus

in which this view of morality is developed, highlighting the differences that emerge from the details of

their respective accounts.

This thesis shows that a tight relation between cognition and motive feeling is central, though in

different ways, for Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to the motivational structure of those actions

through which we develop moral character. According to Kant, recognition of being bound by the

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moral law (our 'practical cognition' of freedom) is indissolubly linked to the feeling of respect for it,

which in turn is explicable only through such recognition. For Schopenhauer, the 'intuitive cognition'

that our existence as distinct individuals is illusory is the feeling of compassion.

Nietzsche radically expands this point, arguing that, in every act of will, the motive feeling and

guiding cognition are uniquely linked. Only a superficial grasp of human motivation supports the idea

that pleasure and pain are the common motive forces underlying all our actions. The inner conflict in

human nature, the creative tension in self-formation, is not, for Nietzsche, that between a uniquely

moral form of motivation and a 'lower' instrumental pursuit of pleasure. Rather, this inner tension,

expressed most strikingly and distressingly in extreme ascetic and guilt-ridden strands of Christian

morality, is the product of a complex historical conflict between two different modes of behavioural

selection – our evolutionary development and the processes of socialization.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my supervising committee for their invaluable help and support. It has

been a great pleasure to work with my supervisor, Amy Mullin. I’m deeply grateful for her ever prompt

and insightful comments and suggestions, for many illuminating discussions, and most of all for her

investment in and attention to this project. I could not have asked for more in a supervisor. To Paul

Franks, on my supervising committee, I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to take a number of

his graduate seminars, both officially and unofficially, during my years in the PhD program. To

Rebecca Comay, also on my supervising committee, I’m forever grateful for an engaging Nietzsche

reading course in the summer of 2006, which launched this project.

I would also like to thank the entire faculty and staff from the Department of Philosophy, and

fellow graduate students during my time here, for a wonderfully stimulating research environment. A

special thanks to Margaret Opoku-Pare for her friendly and gracious help, with all problems big and

small.

Finally, I would like to thank SSHRC and the University of Toronto for the financial support

that allowed me to pursue this research.

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Table of Contents

Abstract.................................................................................................. ii

Acknowledgments.................................................................................iv

Abbreviations........................................................................................ vi

Introduction............................................................................................1

Chapter 1: The Kantian Highest Good

and Competing Conceptions of Freedom.........................16

Chapter 2: Schopenhauer on Kant, and the Pure Knowing Subject...68

Chapter 3: Evolution and Socialization: Nietzsche on

Conflicting Modes of Behavioural Selection...................150

Chapter 4: Nietzsche on the Will to Truth.........................................236

Conclusion.........................................................................................282

Bibliography.......................................................................................292

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Abbreviations

Kant, Immanuel

Unless otherwise indicated, citations to Kant are from the standard Akademie collection:

Königlichen Preußischen (later Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.), 1900-, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Berlin: Georg Reimer (later Walter De Gruyter).

I use the following abbreviations for Kant's individual works.

G – Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals)

KpV – Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason)

KrV – Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason)

KU – Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the Power of Judgment)

Religion – Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (Religion within the Bounds of

Bare Reason)

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Unless otherwise indicated, citations to Schopenhauer are from:

Arthur Schopenhauer, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Arthur Hübscher, Eberhard Brockhaus Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1972.

I use the following abbreviations for Schopenhauer's individual works.

BM – Über die Grundlage der Moral (On the Basis of Morality)

VW – Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde (On the Fourfold Root of the

Principle of Sufficient Reason)

WWV – Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung 1. Band (The World as Will and Representation volume 1)

WWV v2 – Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung 2. Band (The World as Will and Representation volume 2)

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Unless otherwise indicated, citations to Nietzsche are from:

Nietzsche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, eds. G. Colli and M. Montinari, de Gruyter, Berlin 1967-2006.

I use the following abbreviations for Nietzsche's individual works:

AC – Der Antichrist (The Antichrist)

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FW – Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Gay Science)

GD – Götzen-Dämmerung (Twilight of the Idols)

GM – Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the Genealogy of Morals)

JGB – Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil)

M – Morgenröte (Daybreak)

Z – Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

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1

Introduction

This thesis looks at Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche making their stand against utilitarianism.

In broadest possible terms, utilitarianism, as a moral philosophy, holds that promoting general

happiness is the ultimate goal and guiding principle of morally good action. Utilitarianism takes as its

foundation the rock solid empirical fact that, barring tragic or bizarre circumstances, every human

being has a strong and abiding interest in her own personal happiness. This interest is not held

constantly in mind. Clearly we don't keep personal happiness uninterruptedly before our eyes, in

making everyday decisions and in generally going about our lives. But if we imagine someone taking a

broad look at his life – in particular, at his long-term goals, at the important relationships in his life, at

his major personal commitments and potential life-changing decisions – and telling us that personal

happiness doesn't play a central role in shaping his deliberations about what to do with his life, we're

likely to think he's lying to us or to himself, or seriously ill.

This obviously is not a matter of being selfish – that will depend on the particular ends that an

individual thinks make up personal happiness – but simply a central element of our existence as agents

who have to make countless decisions about how to live our lives, from the most trivial daily choices to

life-long commitments. In fact, the interest in personal happiness is so central an element of our agency

that we would be hard-pressed to make any sense of human agency without it. It seems a reasonable

view, then, that any minimally cooperating and mutually respecting group of people will share a

common interest in their general happiness, i.e., in the sum of the personal happiness of individuals in

the group.

For the philosopher, there are, of course, many questions that spring to mind here. What exactly

2

do we mean by personal happiness? Is there some objective list of necessary or sufficient elements of

personal happiness? Or is it essentially a subjective matter of individuals' inclinations and sources of

pleasure? Is it simply the aggregate of an individual's wants or desires? Is that tautologous? How does

personal happiness relate to general happiness? Can the personal happiness of individuals –

'happinesses'? – be summed? Does the interest of a group, or of society – or perhaps of humanity at

large – in promoting general happiness really follow from the interest of each individual in her own

personal happiness? Do we not need moral principles precisely to constrain the individual's interest in

personal happiness, moral principles that therefore seem external to, at least potentially opposed to, the

interest in personal happiness?

These are interesting and important questions. But they are not my questions in this thesis. The

resistance utilitarianism encounters in Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche doesn't turn on the details

with which we flesh out the basic utilitarian intuition1 – and I'm interested here precisely in the

resistance of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to the basic utilitarian intuition. Their resistance is

interesting, in the first instance, for the form it does not take.

Historically, the main opposition to the basic utilitarian intuition, at least insofar as that

opposition was articulated on moral grounds, came from religious commitments, or from (more or less

closely related) traditional considerations of social and political authority. So long as faith in God

grounds the moral world view, so long as the social order determines right and wrong, deliberations

about moral duty are not likely to start with the interest of the individual in personal happiness.

However, absent strong religious authority and entrenched traditional social and political norms,

1 Mainly for this reason, I'm putting off, very briefly, addressing the fact that Kant and Schopenhauer do not directly oppose anything called 'utilitarianism.' Nonetheless, both explicitly oppose promotion of general happiness as an ultimate moral ideal, i.e., they oppose the basic utilitarian intuition discussed here. Moreover, their rejection of what they call 'eudaemonism,' is closely related to their rejection of utilitarian thinking, and in the context of more general discussion, as in this introduction, I will use 'utilitarianism' and 'eudaemonism' roughly interchangeably, though this may seem especially strange to any reader who thinks of eudaemonism primarily in terms of ancient ethical theories. I take up these points in chapters 1 and 2.

3

reasons for opposing utilitarianism are far from obvious.

If there is no divine or transcendent moral authority, no social order clearly sanctioned by

nature, then we seemingly have nowhere else to turn for guiding principles of choice and action than to

the kinds of desires and aspirations that we have both as individuals and as a society. Again, there are

many difficult questions lurking here for the utilitarian, which she can only answer by articulating

detailed conceptions of individual and general happiness, and of the relation between them. But it

seems eminently plausible that we would want to adopt principles that offer something like maximum

satisfaction of the desires and aspirations in our deliberations about morality. At the most general level,

then, we will want principles that promote harmony between the individual's interest in her personal

happiness and her interest in general happiness, and that define as right, or morally good, those actions

that tend to increase general happiness, and thereby the happiness of individuals. In other words, we

will adopt core utilitarian principles.

Yet Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche all reject this general approach to questions of moral

value and duty, and none of them looks to religion or to the weight of tradition to justify his rejection.

They do not object to this or that element or nuance of the utilitarian view I've just presented it. Each of

them insists that this way of approaching morality, or more generally, of approaching the question as to

how we should live our lives (and the endless choices, big and small, that this involves), is

fundamentally wrong. The burden, it seems to me, is on them to justify their rejection of utilitarianism,

on whose side lie the basic moral intuition and considerations outlined above. There is something

provocative, if not offensive, about the denial of the basic utilitarian moral intuition. Undoubtedly, a

sense of having been provoked or offended runs through much of the criticism directed at the moral

philosophies of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

I confess that I find much of what Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have to say in opposition

to utilitarianism appealing. My primary aim in writing this thesis has been to articulate just what they

4

have to say here and why it might be appealing. Since they have very different things to say about how

best to respond to utilitarianism, I do not aim primarily to draw out a shared line of attack, though I'll

note similarities and common themes as they emerge. In the first instance, I explain the fundamental

commitments of each, and look at the main points of criticism each directs at the others, either

implicitly or directly (as in the case of Schopenhauer's critique of Kant and of Nietzsche's critique of

Schopenhauer). A broad common theme that emerges is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the notion of a higher

self, and, more importantly, a task of self-formation and self-overcoming inspired and guided by such a

notion. The demands of this task often stand opposed to that which this higher self's counterpart – say,

one's 'lower self' or everyday self or passive self, although these terms should be taken as mere place-

holders for now – would think of as happiness.

The notion of a higher self is tricky – it rightfully arouses suspicion and mistrust. It's at least

provocative, to stick with that delicate word, for someone to tell us what our higher self wants or strives

for – or even just what it doesn't want. In fact, the very idea can be downright offensive, and we might

well note that, in the hands of some, the attempt to translate such ideas into reality can turn horrific. But

we should be wary of overstating the potentially sinister side to teaching a higher self. The notion has

tremendous resonance, and the provocation involved in teaching a higher self is surely, both in

calculation and effect, as often inspiring as offending. Perhaps the provocation is most effective when it

is both at once; offence, after all, is not, merely as such, something sinister.

In any case, the notion of a higher self is central to the way in which each of Kant,

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche articulates his opposition to utilitarianism. Each of them argues that a

person's suffering, the frustration of her happiness, is an integral element in the moral task of self-

overcoming; Kant and Nietzsche add that higher contentment and joy rest partly, though essentially, on

the pain of such self-overcoming, while the point is more ambiguous in Schopenhauer. Thus, for at

least Kant and Nietzsche, the moral value of some forms of pain and suffering is affirmed as essential

5

to the project of self-formation and to the self-overcoming this project involves. At this level of

generality, these statements don't tell us much about the moral philosophies of Kant, Schopenhauer and

Nietzsche, but they may be of some use in framing the discussion to follow. The substantial

philosophical commitments of each naturally only emerge when we try to work out the details of the

task of self-formation each commends.

A word here about 'happiness.' While utilitarianism is not necessarily hedonistic, the utilitarian

theories to which Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche most clearly oppose themselves generally

understand happiness in terms of pleasure or satisfaction of desire. Kant and Schopenhauer know such

theories, roughly speaking, under the label of 'eudaemonism,'2 which thus takes on a much more

restricted meaning here than it has in ancient ethical theories. These general statements will be

qualified and clarified in the individual chapters that follow. While Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche

often speak as though ready to oppose any moral philosophy that focuses on happiness as the

fundamental moral good, even on a relatively broad understanding of happiness, it's generally

important to keep in mind the narrower conception of happiness as pleasure that is foremost in the

utilitarian positions they target.

An important difference between utilitarianism and eudaemonism remains however, even when

the latter is taken in the restricted hedonist form that Kant and Schopenhauer typically have in mind.

What Kant and Schopenhauer oppose under the title of eudaemonism is a doctrine of personal

happiness, or a theory about how to attain it, or both. Eudaemonism also doubles as a moral philosophy

to the extent it’s presented as a teaching about how one ought to live. On the other hand, utilitarianism,

as Nietzsche knew it through the works of Mill and Spencer, is first and foremost a moral doctrine

grounded in general, not personal, happiness as the ultimate good. However, utilitarians like Mill

ground their moral doctrine in a ‘theory of life’ according to which the ultimate end of every individual

2 See note 1 above.

6

is her own happiness, and on an awkward inference from the desirability of individual happiness to the

desirability of general happiness. Throughout this thesis, I look primarily to examine how Kant,

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche take aim at this ‘theory of life’ – an account of human motivation – which

underlies both utilitarianism as a moral theory and eudaemonism as a doctrine of happiness. That is, we

have to examine our three philosophers’ respective accounts of motivation, of human nature as it relates

to agency, in order to grasp the details of their opposition to eudaemonism/utilitarianism, as well as the

critiques that they direct at each other (most clearly, of course, Schopenhauer at Kant, and Nietzsche at

Schopenhauer, though the work of each of these philosophers contains at least implicit criticism of the

other two). My strategy in doing so was to look at each philosopher in turn and take his texts on their

own terms, while nonetheless keeping an eye on the critique levelled by his successor.

I give now a brief overview of the chapters that follow.

In chapter 1, I look at various issues raised by Kant's conceptions of the 'highest good for a

person' and of moral development, in particular, of the development of moral strength of character.

Kant's notion of the highest good for a person has often been a target of criticism for its attempt to

reconcile 'complete happiness' with virtue, given that Kant himself seems to tie sacrifice of happiness

to virtuous action. I argue, with recent commentators like Reath and Korsgaard, that it's a mistake to

think that Kant insists the actual sacrifice of happiness, or the frustration of inclination, is an integral

part of all virtuous action. It is true, however, that Kant ties such sacrifice and frustration to the

development of moral strength of character, i.e., to the development of a virtuous disposition, and that

this creates certain difficulties for his conception of the highest good. In other words, these difficulties

for his conception of the highest good arise from his account of motivation, and in particular from his

account of the motivational structure supporting morally good actions.

Section 1.1 of chapter 1 outlines the moral intuition behind the Kantian highest good. The basic

idea is that good people deserve to be happy, while immoral or vicious people do not. An important part

7

of being a good person, i.e., a person of virtuous disposition, is making the moral law, and not the

principle of happiness, the overarching principle of choice guiding one's deliberations and decisions.

You ought, in other words, to put doing what's right ahead of doing what makes you happy. There is

perhaps a hint of tension in the idea that personal happiness is the just reward for anyone who puts to

the side (when duty so demands) her interest in personal happiness. But to criticize the basic intuition

as hypocritical is surely a cynical distortion. Some people, without harbouring secret expectations of

reward, are better at putting aside their immediate personal interests in order to do what seems fair or

right, and it's not unreasonable to think that such people are, in fact, more deserving of happiness.

The topic of section 1.2 is the contrast, which Kant puts at the heart of his moral philosophy and

account of motivation, between two overarching principles of choice – that of the moral law and that of

personal happiness. When we take satisfaction of our desires and inclinations (i.e., habitual desires) as

the most fundamental reasons for our choices of action, we thereby make the principle of happiness our

guiding principle. This is true, according to Kant, even when the desires we aim to satisfy are

benevolent, directed towards the happiness of others. On Kant's view, desires themselves 'push' or 'pull'

towards certain actions, but the choice of action and, the reason we would give for it, reflect the

adoption of a rational principle of choice. There is an important distinction here between the motive

force and the motive of choice, or between the feeling that tempts us towards a given action and the

principle by which we choose an action. This distinction will run throughout the entire discussion in

this thesis; it is crucial for understanding the differences between the accounts of motivation advanced

by our three main philosophers, and thus for understanding the differences in their strategies for

opposing utilitarianism. For Kant, an important consequence of drawing this distinction is that it allows

him to hold that the motive force behind every action from inclination is (longing for) pleasure, without

thereby claiming that the agent's immediate aim or reason for acting is to obtain pleasure. On Kant's

view, only in the case of acting out of respect for the moral law is even the motive force behind the

8

action something other than pleasure.

Section 1.3 examines Kant's understanding of acting out of respect for the moral law. The

distinctive feature of moral action is, on Kant's account, that the principle of choice here produces the

motive force, i.e., the subjective motivating feeling that Kant holds necessary for action. Kant claims,

that is, that recognition of the moral law – as the law binding on me because I'm a rational agent –

produces in me a feeling of respect for the moral law. The feeling of respect is entirely distinct from the

pleasure arising from inclination, since to recognize that I'm bound by the moral law is precisely to

overrule the principle of happiness as my highest principle of choice, and therefore to 'strike down' the

'presumption' of the inclinations to determine my choice. That a rational principle, namely the moral

law, can of itself produce a feeling, the motive force behind an action, is a 'fact of reason,' as Kant

famously calls it. Through this fact of reason, my higher self announces itself and its superiority over

my unqualified interest in personal happiness. Importantly, Kant also insists that the development of

this higher self requires occasions of actual conflict with the inclinations, through which I learn to

choose an action even if painful to me, when duty so demands.

Section 1.4 looks at Kant's attempt to fit his account of motivation, and particularly the

conception of freedom developed in the second Critique, into the critical framework carved out in the

first Critique. The central claim Kant needs to secure here is that, for rational agents (or at least for

human beings as a subset of rational agents), freedom from determination by the mechanical causality

that reigns in the empirical world is equivalent to freedom from determination by the inclinations. This

is the longest and most technical section of chapter 1. For the moment, I'll note simply that Kant runs

into serious difficulty when trying to cash in this claim, because the mutual non-infringement he

describes between noumenal and phenomenal (or empirical) causality is in serious tension with the (at

least occasional) conflict he describes between duty and the inclinations. This 'Coordination Problem'

will be traced in detail, setting the stage for Schopenhauer's critique of Kant in chapter 2.

9

Finally, section 1.5 looks at the consequences of the discussion in the previous sections for

Kant's conception of the highest good. I argue that 'complete happiness,' at least as Kant sometimes

describes it, is not compatible with complete virtue, contrary to what Kant's conception of the highest

good seems to suggest. I'll look at the qualifications we might make to Kant's position here in order to

ensure that his conception of the highest is consistent.

In chapter 2, I turn to Schopenhauer's critique of Kant, and then to Schopenhauer's own moral

philosophy and the difficulties it in turn creates. Schopenhauer attacks the Kantian highest good,

arguing that it makes a 'sham contract' of morality. According to Schopenhauer's moral philosophy,

virtue and individual happiness are irreconcilable, so that the path to virtue lies ultimately in

resignation, in 'quieting of the will' and the renunciation of all desires. The higher self of

Schopenhauer's philosophy is a 'pure knowing subject' free from will and desire, and therefore (as we

shall see) free also from the 'illusion' of individuation. In release from the will, this higher self attains a

state of peace and joy inaccessible to the individual as such, precisely because to be an individual is to

endlessly pursue satisfaction of one's desires, which pursuit is misery itself, given Schopenhauer's

characterizations of the will as insatiable and of unsatisfied desire as pain and suffering. Yet, as

Schopenhauer criticizes Kant's philosophy for succumbing to eudaemonism, so Nietzsche in turn

targets Schopenhauer's pure knowing subject. In particular, Nietzsche draws attention to the fact that,

while Schopenhauer's pure knowing subject is valued as a state of repose and freedom from will, this

valuation itself is grounded in the perspective of insatiable, suffering will, i.e., the pure knowing

subject is valued as a state of ultimate desire-satisfaction. In other words, the value of Schopenhauer's

ethical ideal itself depends on the eudaemonistic perspective his philosophy claims to overcome.

Sections 2.1 and 2.2 place the Coordination Problem described in chapter 1 in the broader

context of Kant's critical philosophy, and in relation to the main targets of Schopenhauerean criticism –

the role of the Kantian thing-in-itself, the lawgiving of pure practical reason, the relation between the

10

understanding and reason. The stage is thus set for Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical

philosophy, which is presented in section 2.3. Schopenhauer's critique might seem to misfire badly

when aiming at the various targets just noted. He seems to ignore the key separation Kant draws

between the rational and empirical orders, between, e.g., the understanding's transcendental acts of

synthesis and causally determined empirical events. He seems to distort Kant's appeal to the thing-in-

itself to suit his purposes – in particular, to distinguish it from his own appeal to the thing-in-itself – in

a way that is not altogether convincing. At best, Schopenhauer seems to be offering an alternative

version of idealism, rather than a critique of Kant that has internal traction. I argue, however, that when

we read Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy in light of their respective accounts of

motivation, Schopenhauer's attacks on the Kantian philosophy appear much more cogent. In particular,

Schopenhauer heeds Kant's claims that (1) if the inclinations are our only source of motivation, then

our actions are fully determined by empirical causality, (2) to act free from determination by empirical

causality is to draw on a source of motivation other than inclination and (3) noumenal (i.e., non-

empirical) causality, or freedom, can never infringe upon empirical causality. Schopenhauer draws the

conclusion that freedom as Kant understands, i.e., noumenally, can never have any causal effect in the

world of experience. In other words, Schopenhauer solves our chapter 1 Coordination Problem by

holding to a deterministic theory of agency (with minor qualifications to be addressed in 2.4), for

reasons drawn largely from Kant's own attempt to coordinate the conceptions of freedom in his first

two Critiques.

Section 2.4 looks at Schopenhauer's moral philosophy on its own terms, noting the peculiar

combination it presents of cosmic eudaemonism and a negative conception of happiness. Cosmic

eudaemonism refers to Schopenhauer's doctrine that behind every phenomenon lies the will's longing

for satisfaction, and that this striving for satisfaction constitutes the very glue of necessity by which

every effect is bound to its cause. Schopenhauer's negative conception of happiness holds that only

11

suffering is real, while pleasure and happiness are 'negative,' are, that is, simply the absence of

suffering. We will, we have desires, because we experience lack and need. Happiness is the absence of

desire, release from the pressure of willing. But so long as we act under the illusion that we exist only

as individual, empirical selves, our entire inner nature is will, reaching out into the world through

particular desires, which we experience as suffering. Insight into this seemingly hopeless state offers

some promise of salvation, however, because it 'quiets the will.' Ultimately, such insight can divorce us

from all willing, all desire, and therefore from the ego and individual existence itself. Salvation is thus

found in a state of 'pure knowing' independent of will.

Section 2.5 launches a Nietzschean attack on this account of salvation. Schopenhauer's

philosophy presents insight into the true, inner reality of will as the means to salvation. This inner

reality is endless, insatiable, purposeless striving and suffering. This inner character of will thus also

gives Schopenhauer the philosophical justification for the ethical ideal of renunciation and resignation

of the will. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer along two related paths. First, he questions whether

Schopenhauer's account of motivation is an accurate representation of human agency as we experience

and observe it. Second, he notes that valuing the state of pure knowing as a state of repose, of peace

and release from willing, itself depends on the valuational perspective tied to Schopenhauer's

conception of will and desire as suffering and lack. But do we really have an absolute perspective on

willing, i.e., a perspective that is itself free from all desiring will? Or is the state of pure knowing, of

release from all willing, rather the ideal that a sick and suffering will necessarily builds for itself?

Nietzsche argues that the ideal of renunciation, more precisely the valuing of such an ideal, itself

reflects and depends on the desires and will that place such high value on it. A healthier form of will,

healthier desires, will build a healthier ideal.

In chapter 3, we find Nietzsche offering a radically different account of the tension between

forming a higher self and pursuing pleasure. In contrast to Kant and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche argues

12

that this tension is the historically contingent product of the empirical world. In particular, Nietzsche's

genealogical account focuses on the sudden change in living conditions that humans underwent in the

transition from nomadic 'semi-animals' to subjects of early law-governed 'states.' Nietzsche sees the

earliest states imposing the basic rule of law through brutal punishments, as also through the constant

threat of punishment, thereby burning 'five or six “I shall nots”' into human memory and transforming

the mode in which behaviour is selected. This 'social selection' of behaviour is, on Nietzsche's account,

layered over the drives and instincts naturally selected during our animal prehistory. For Nietzsche, the

tension between these two modes of selection is the defining condition, the crisis, of human nature.

Here he enters into direct dialogue with contemporary utilitarians, Herbert Spencer in particular, who

see social development rather as a continuation of natural selection, and as holding out the promise of

complete happiness once we have fully adapted to life in society. Nietzsche insists instead on a

fundamental tension, which he sees as source of the creative power for self-formation, through which it

becomes possible to take over from blind nature the project of shaping human character, to cease being

'a plaything of nonsense.'

Section 3.1 looks at the utilitarian theories with which Nietzsche was most familiar, those of

Mill and Spencer. Spencer is particularly interesting here, because he, like Nietzsche, places great

emphasis on our animal evolution and social history in developing his moral philosophy. Spencer

imagines that social progress and change are simply the continuation of natural evolution, so that

adaptation to life in society is itself accomplished through biological evolution. Eventually, whatever

tensions now exist between those drives and instincts evolved in our animal past, on the one hand, and

the demands of life in society, on the other, will be completely erased. Spencer acknowledges that

asceticism and self-sacrifice have been central elements of morality up to now, but insists that this is

the result of a temporary state of affairs in which the individual is asked to subordinate her interests to

the greater good of society. In time, the interests of individual and general happiness will develop in

13

complete harmony.

Section 3.2 presents Nietzsche's competing vision, according to which the transition to life in

society governed by law and mores, enforced by punishment, introduced a radically new form of

behavioural selection. With this transition, a tremendous amount of freedom was 'expelled' from the

world. The drives and instincts of our animal nature had to be controlled, repressed, redirected.

Crucially, the violence and joy in inflicting suffering on others was turned inward and refined. This is

the ultimate source, according to Nietzsche, of the hold the ascetic ideal has had over human beings.

Nietzsche points out that the willingness and longing to suffer, or at least to sacrifice in some way, in

order to secure and prove one's commitment (not only to others, but to oneself) to stated values and

ideals is central to all major religions. Nietzsche acknowledges the 'tyranny' and 'idiocy' often at work

in the social straightjacket of mores and religion, and dissects the illness, the 'anti-nature,' at the heart

of ascetic hatred of human nature, of the body, its needs and desires in particular. For Nietzsche, this

distinctively human crisis, 'bad conscience,' is a product of the clash between the modes of selection

shaping our behaviour – the natural selection that has shaped our animal nature and the processes of

socialization that have shaped much of our social and moral natures.

Section 3.3 notes some key results of Nietzsche's genealogical story for his account of

motivation, in particular, his criticism of the utilitarianism of Spencer and Mill for focusing so intently

on the mere 'epiphenomena' of pleasure and pain. For Nietzsche, this focus on pleasure and pain as

basic elements of motivation obscures the complexity of underlying drives and instincts, which are

shaped through the conflicting modes of behavioural selection just noted, and through our negotiation

of such conflict. Utilitarianism, as Nietzsche understands it, therefore fails to see the great promise and

creative power that arise from this conflict, and the resulting longing to 'overcome' oneself, to create a

higher self.

In section 3.4, I return to consider again the Kantian and Schopenhauerean accounts of moral

14

action, in light of the discussion of Nietzsche. Kant and Schopenhauer each describe a unique form of

motivation that overcomes the eudaemonistic or utilitarian perspective. For each this involves a

particularly close tie between a motive force and a motive of choice, between a particular kind of

feeling and a particular cognition. For Kant, there is the feeling of respect produced by recognition of

the moral law; for Schopenhauer, there is the feeling of compassion produced by (or one with) the

insight that individuation is illusory. In this section, we'll see how Nietzsche approves of the intimate

link between motive feeling and guiding cognition, or 'commanding thought.' Indeed, Nietzsche

generalizes the point and makes it into a primary ground of criticism of utilitarianism: pleasure and

pain are meaningless in the abstract, he claims, for they are always 'secondary phenomena'

accompanying specific drives, instincts, desires that have particular goals, purposes, and relations to

one another. It's senseless to approve or disapprove of pleasure and pain in the abstract, considered

independently of these underlying or accompanying drives, instincts and desires. Nietzsche also

criticizes the dualistic and metaphysical interpretation Kant and Schopenhauer give of the motivational

state involved in moral action. Nietzsche's genealogical account explains the tension between higher

self and happiness without splitting human nature into metaphysically distinct aspects.

Finally, chapter 4 looks at how Nietzsche raises 'the problem' of the will to truth. The first three

chapters develop the answers to the main question addressed in this thesis: why do Kant, Schopenhauer

and Nietzsche reject utilitarianism? Chapter 4 draws on the context of Nietzschean concerns that

emerges in chapter 3 to make sense of his critique of the 'unconditional will to truth.' I note that

Nietzsche's genealogical account of the will-to-truth's development involves a spectrum of will-to-

truth, with a pragmatic conception at one end, according to which truth is what helps the species

survive and individuals to organize their experience, and an extremely anti-pragmatic conception of

truth 'at any price' at the other end. In section 4.1, I examine the pragmatic conception of truth found in

Nietzsche's philosophy and its connection to our evolutionary past. In section 4.2, I turn to the other

15

extreme, to the unconditional will to truth ready to sacrifice all other values for the sake of truth.

Nietzsche sees in this unconditional will to truth the 'kernel' of the ascetic ideal and the commanding

thought of Judeo-Christian morality. While he criticizes the faith that values truth unconditionally, he

insists that the philosopher must incorporate the strength and creative tension of this anti-pragmatic will

to truth, even in the task of critically questioning the faith that has supported it. In section 4.3, I explain

the confusion that arises when we read Nietzsche's attacks as aimed at the epistemological status of

truth, or when we read him as advancing an epistemological doctrine of 'thoroughgoing perspectivism.'

In order to bring a manageable focus to this thesis, I've limited the following examination to the

texts of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that seemed to me to offer their clearest and most

persuasive opposition to eudaemonism/utilitarianism. For Kant, I focus primarily on the Critique of

Practical Reason, while drawing at times on the Groundwork and on the Critique of the Power of

Judgment, and only sparingly on works beyond these. For Schopenhauer, I deal mainly with the first

volume of World as Will and Representation, The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,

and the essay On the Basis of Morality. For Nietzsche, I focus on the published works of the 1880s,

from Daybreak through Anti-Christ.

16

Chapter 1

The Kantian Highest Good and Competing Conceptions of Freedom

This first chapter will highlight certain difficulties arising from Kant's characterization of the

'highest good,' when considered in light of his account of human motivation and agency. Ultimately,

we'll see that confusion surrounding the inclinations in Kant's account of motivation is more serious

than the difficulties we can properly pin on the highest good. It will be useful, however, to tackle these

difficulties directly, because they highlight the way in which Kant retains an essentially eudaemonistic

conception of happiness, even as he subordinates it to respect for the moral law within both his account

of motivation and his moral philosophy more generally. By the highest good for a person, Kant means

the combination of virtue and happiness, where the former is understood as the condition (to be

worthy) of the latter. There are two principal difficulties tied to this conception of the highest good that

I would like to bring out in this chapter. First, although virtue and happiness, in the complete sense

seemingly implied by the Kantian highest good (see section 1.5), are merely ideal, we might worry,

given Kant's account of each, that they are not even in principle compatible. If this worry is well-

founded, then the soundness of Kant's conception of the highest good is in doubt. Second, there is some

difficulty in reconciling Kant's claims that, on the one hand, reason must infringe upon, and even strike

down, the presumption of the inclinations to determine the will, and that, on the other hand, the

causality of pure practical reason can never infringe upon phenomenal causality. This difficulty arises,

in particular, because Kant coordinates the conceptions of freedom central to the first and second

Critiques, respectively, by 'placing' the inclinations in the phenomenal realm, in a sense to be clarified

below.

17

The second of these difficulties, i.e., that arising from the way Kant coordinates his conceptions

of freedom, will be my primary focus in this chapter. As a result, much of the discussion will deal more

closely with Kant's account of motivation than with his conception of the highest good. It will prove

useful, however, to tie the two difficulties together, in order to make sense, in chapter 2, of

Schopenhauer's critique of the Kantian highest good. For this critique will seem rather superficial

unless we can relate it to a clash between deeper commitments involved in their respective accounts of

motivation and of freedom.

In section 1.1, I look briefly at the very plausible moral intuition behind the Kantian highest

good. In section 1.2, I outline the elements of Kant's psychological account of motivation that will be

most important for my argument, and, in section 1.3, I examine in detail a key feature of this account,

namely, the conflict of duty with inclination that is necessary, at least on occasion, for developing the

moral disposition. In section 1.4, I explain Kant's attempted coordination of his 'theoretical' and

'practical' conceptions of freedom. Finally, in 1.5, I look at the tension in Kant's conception of the

highest good, given the considerations developed in sections 1.2 to 1.4.

1.1 The moral intuition behind the highest good

In the following sections, I will look at some of the more technical details of the Kantian

highest good, as these are tied to his account of motivation. For the moment, however, we can note that

the basic idea is simply that good, virtuous people ought to find their share of happiness in life, while

cruel or selfish people ought not to happily prosper. Kant here distinguishes between the highest good

for a possible world and the highest good for a person.1 The highest good for a possible world is the

distribution of happiness in strict proportion to virtue. The highest good for a person is the combination

of virtue and happiness, where virtue must be understood, Kant insists, as the 'supreme good' in this

1 KpV 5:110.

18

combination, which is to say, as the condition of the goodness of the accompanying happiness.

Kant also insists that we not lose sight of the difference between virtue and happiness, nor of the

fact that happiness does not in fact always accompany virtue. In this respect, he contrasts his position

with that of the Stoics who, as Kant sees it, identify happiness with consciousness of one's own virtue,

and with that of the Epicureans who identify virtue with knowledge of the most suitable means for

achieving personal happiness.2 Here Kant again takes an eminently plausible position, for we can easily

imagine hardships and tragedy leaving an upstanding and virtuous person unhappy, through no fault of

her own, and, conversely, we can imagine a vicious person meeting with good fortune and leading a

pleasant life. (Although in the latter case, both Kant and the 'everyday moral intuition' of many people

will add certain qualifications to the kind of happiness that can be achieved by a vicious person.)

Everyday moral intuition will also, I think, side with Kant when he rejects the idea that virtue is simply

the wisdom to achieve one's own happiness.

Now, the Kantian highest good must not be taken as an original source of moral obligation. For

Kant, as we'll see below, the moral law alone is a source of obligation for rational beings. The highest

good for a person is rather that which we naturally wish for ourselves, when we properly restrict our

pursuit of happiness according to, and out of respect for, the moral law. The highest good for a possible

world is that state which we ought to strive to help bring about, so far as it is in our power. On each of

these points, Kant's conception of the highest good again strikes us, I think, as perfectly reasonable and

intuitive. We generally agree, that is, that genuine moral concern should not have as its aim any

personal reward for moral actions, should certainly not take any such reward as the reason for acting

morally. Nonetheless, we tend to feel that those people who do, in fact, put aside concern for their own

happiness and satisfaction, when questions of moral duty or obligation arise, are – for that very reason

and to that extent – more worthy of happiness than those who pursue personal satisfaction and

2 KpV 5:111.

19

happiness as a general policy. Finally, striving to bring about the highest good for a possible world

here, in this world, is simply to do one's part in trying to bring about a state that corresponds with this

sense of moral justice, i.e., according to which everyone achieves happiness in proportion to desert.

All in all, then, it would seem that the Kantian highest good is a rather safe and honourable

notion for any moral philosophy to defend. Yet it has on occasion proved a particular object of scorn

among philosophers. Hegel, for instance, famously maligns it as the product or expression of an

'insincere shuffling' of moral consciousness between contradictory perspectives on happiness and moral

principle.3 Schopenhauer in turn claims it makes a 'sham contract' of morality4 – a claim I'll examine in

detail in chapter 2. If the point were simply to attack the general moral intuition behind the highest

good, as I've been explaining it here, I don't think we would see much reason to take the criticism

seriously. So it is worth asking why the particular formulation Kant gives to the highest good, and the

way in which it sits with his account of motivation, particularly of morally good action, arouses such

strong reaction. In the remaining sections of this chapter, I'll examine this issue, with a view to taking

up, in chapter 2, Schopenhauer's criticism in particular.

First, it might be worthwhile to acknowledge, without here getting into too much technical

detail, the often attacked 'rational faith' that Kant urges we take towards those conditions that must be

'postulated' in support of the highest good. Since the highest good is 'der notwendige höchste Zweck

eines moralisch bestimmten Willens, ein wahres Objekt derselben,'5 I must at least believe that the

highest good is possible if I'm to determine my will morally. However, of the necessary conditions for

this possibility – immortality of the soul and the existence of God – we can have no theoretical

knowledge.6 Nonetheless, I discover 'as a fact of pure reason'7 that I can determine my will by the

3 E.g., §617 in Phenomenology of Spirit. The criticism is developed in sections §§599-632.4 WWV v1, p.621. (Page numbers given for WWV v1 are from volume 2 of Arthur Schopenhauer, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by

Arthur Hübscher, Eberhard Brockhaus Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1972.)5 KpV 5:115.6 KpV 5:132-3.7 KpV 5:47; cf. also 5:31 and 5:6.

20

moral law, and so I must postulate 'practically' the conditions that make possible the highest good.

These postulates are therefore, for practical reason, necessary and certain, but for speculative reason,

unfathomable, which might seem an awkward or disingenuous path towards affirming what we want to

believe, but, in fact, have no warrant to. Moreover, the very desire for the highest good can be cast in a

rather self-serving light: the virtuous will, i.e., the will determined by the moral law, postulates

conditions guaranteeing a state in which happiness is distributed in proportion to virtue. To readers like

Schopenhauer, Kant seems to be conceding that we in fact know nothing about such a proportionate

distribution, while in the same breath insisting that we should act as though we believe in it, since we

are only really motivated to act virtuously when we expect personal happiness in return. The whole

attitude of this 'rational faith' then seems not only disingenuous, but selfishly egoistic.

Such a reading leans on a serious misunderstanding. It assumes that ideally we would have

theoretical certainty of the conditions necessary for the highest good. In the absence of such certainty,

we must 'at least' postulate. But Kant does not think theoretical certainty would be a good thing here.

Theoretical knowledge of God and of immortality of the soul would pre-empt any possible conflict

between duty and inclination; yet occasions of such conflict are essential for developing the 'strength of

soul' needed for the moral disposition.8 Whatever we might think of the credibility of Kant's practical

postulates, they are clearly not intended as 'best-possible substitutes' for theoretical knowledge,

motivating us to act 'as if' we had theoretical certainty of what is postulated. I will look at this point in

detail in sections 1.3 and 1.4 below.

The sore point at which Schopenhauer's reading really pokes is the apparent exclusion, in Kant's

conception of the highest good for a person, of the necessary (for virtue) occasions of conflict between

duty and inclination. Kant clearly does not oppose virtue to happiness, but his conception of virtue does

presuppose, not only a possible tension between virtuous interest in the moral law and the interests of

8 See esp. KpV 5:146-148, a passage I will discuss at length below.

21

happiness, but also occasions of actual conflict between the two. Thus virtue might not seem even in

principle compatible, as it is assumed to be in the Kantian highest good for a person, with happiness, if

the latter is taken as 'das Bewußtsein eines vernünftigen Wesens von der Annehmlichkeit des Lebens,

die ununterbrochen sein ganzes Dasein begleitet.'9 Here Schopenhauer's criticism might find an internal

toehold after all.

This ambiguity or inconsistency in Kant's conception of the highest good interests me here

primarily insofar as it reflects an ambiguity in the conception of the inclinations in the second Critique.

Kant at times describes the inclinations as belonging to the phenomenal realm under the lawgiving of

the understanding, while at other times insisting that pure practical reason may infringe upon, and

strike down, their influence on the will. These two claims are difficult to reconcile, for reasons to be

explored in the following two sections. In chapter 2, we will then be able to make sense of

Schopenhauer's attacks on the Kantian highest good in terms of what I think is the more serious

difficulty here in Kant's conception of the inclinations.

1.2 Motivation by the inclinations in the second Critique

In the second Critique (hereafter KpV), Kant develops his moral philosophy's most definitive

account of motivation, and I will focus primarily on the account he gives there. Kant first defines the

faculty of desire as a being's faculty 'durch seine Vorstellungen Ursache von der Wirklichkeit der

Gegenstände dieser Vorstellungen zu sein.'10 This is the capacity, in other words, to act for the sake of

one's represented goals and ends. Kant's moral philosophy revolves around the question of how this

faculty is determined to these representations in the first place. What determines, i.e. motivates, the

faculty of desire to adopt particular ends? Kant points to two further faculties11 to complete the broad

9 KpV 5:22.10 KpV 5:9.11 Perhaps 'capacity' or 'ability' is a better translation of the German 'Vermögen.'

22

framework in which he develops his answer. These are the faculties of feeling and of reason. The first

is a faculty of receptivity, through which we feel pleasure or displeasure in the ways objects affect us.12

The second faculty is the spontaneity of rational beings 'ihre Kausalität durch die Vorstellung von

Regeln zu bestimmen.'13

The faculty of feeling reflects, for Kant, our practical limitations as finite beings. We are not

self-sufficient, since we are subject to needs and desires arising independently of our wish or choice;

given our nature as sensible beings, these needs and desires press on us through feelings of pleasure

and displeasure ('Lust' and 'Unlust').14 It's in our very nature to be motivated by the pleasure

(specifically, by the 'agreeableness')15 we expect from particular objects or activities, and therefore to

pursue these.

I think it's fairly clear that, on his primary and considered view, Kant rejects any mechanical or

'hydraulic' account of motivation, according to which desires would act on the will as a sum of forces,

with the strongest, or some combination of the strongest, winning out and determining volition. (I'll

consider certain qualifications to, and questions surrounding, this point below.) Since Kant thinks,

however, that it is through 'sensible impulse' and affection of the faculty of feeling that representations

(of possible goals, actions) influence the will, by giving rise to expected pleasure (or displeasure),16 he

needs to clarify how such impulse and affection can enter into the deliberations of practical reason, as a

12 See, e.g., KpV 5:22.13 KpV 5:32. This definition Kant actually gives here for will. His terminology in KpV floats between identifying 'will'

with 'practical reason' and with 'faculty of desire.' I think the ambiguity is resolved more or less as follows: the faculty or capacity to determine causality belongs to, or simply is, practical reason, while the causality itself that is determined thereby is the faculty of desire. What Kant means by will ranges over both this capacity and causality. This should become clear in this chapter's presentation of Kant's account of motivation. Note how Kant characterizes the principal object of a critique of practical reason as the will, 'welcher eine Kausalität ist, so fern Vernunft den Bestimmungsgrund derselben enthält' (5:89). Compare also Kant’s definition of will in the Grundlegung (4:412): 'Nur ein vernünftiges Wesen hat das Vermögen, nach der Vorstellung der Gesetze, d.i. nach Principien, zu handeln, oder einen Willen. Da zur Ableitung der Handlungen von Gesetzen Vernunft erfordert wird, so ist der Wille nichts anders als praktische Vernunft.'

14 KpV 5:25.15 For pleasure in this more specific sense Kant generally uses 'Annehmlichkeit' – i.e. 'agreeableness' – rather than the

more general 'Lust' (see, e.g., KpV 5:22-25). I will avoid weighing down the discussion with this distinction, so long as it is not central to my argument.

16 KpV 5:22-26.

23

faculty that determines the will according to 'the representation of rules.'17

Kant's explanation is that the sensible impulses of our causally-affected empirical nature present

themselves to, and influence, the will as incentives ('Triebfeder'), an incentive being 'der subjektive

Bestimmungsgrund des Willens eines Wesens [...] dessen Vernunft nicht, schon vermöge seiner Natur,

dem objektiven Gesetze notwendig gemäß ist.'18 An incentive does not simply 'push' the will, but

presents itself to the will as a possible reason for acting. When, as rational beings, we in fact represent

to ourselves an incentive as a reason for acting, the incentive becomes, in Kant's terminology, an

interest ('Interesse') in that which is suggested by the incentive.19 Finally, Kant says, '[a]uf dem Begriffe

eines Interesses gründet sich auch der einer Maxime.'20 A maxim is a general determination of the will,

i.e., having many particular practical rules subordinate to it, that is accepted by an agent as subjectively

valid for her.21 Kant gives as an example the maxim of never letting an insult go unavenged.22 Clearly,

this is a very general principle, and if we have adopted it as a basic practical principle in life, we will

have to reason out just how to apply it in various given circumstances. In other words, we will need to

follow secondary principles, or more specific rules, to guide us in the application of our general maxim

to concrete circumstances.

Very well; we now see how, on Kant's account, sensible impulses can give rise to incentives,

interests and, finally, maxims. Kant argues, however, that no maxim grounded ultimately in sensible

impulse, i.e., in feeling, could possibly count as an objectively valid practical principle, i.e., a maxim

that ought necessarily to be adopted by every rational being. For sensible impulses are given only

17 As Andrews Reath puts the specific Kantian problem to which we're building: 'There must be enough common ground between motivation by inclination and moral motivation to show how the moral incentive can limit the influence of non-moral incentives' (p.18, Reath, 'Kant's Theory of Moral Sensibility: Respect for the Moral Law and the Influence of Inclination' in Agency and Autonomy in Kant's Moral Theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2006. All citations to Reath are given with page numbers from this book.) I will make occasional reference to Reath's interpretation in the following.

18 KpV 5:72.19 KpV 5:79.20 KpV 5:79.21 KpV 5:19.22 KpV 5:19.

24

contingently in experience, and that we should be pleasurably affected by (the representation of) an

object or activity can never, therefore, be determined a priori. Kant here claims, controversially, that

every action whose maxim is based on an interest in an outcome or goal (the 'object' of desire) falls

under the principle of self-love or happiness.23 In every desire, Kant argues, the object of desire is

represented as pleasurable; if, then, the representation of this object – the expected outcome, or goal, of

acting on the desire – grounds the maxim on which the agent acts, the expected pleasure is the

determining ground of the will, and the agent's choice therefore falls under the principle of self-love or

happiness.

There has been considerable debate recently as to the sense in which, and the extent to which,

Kant here commits himself to a form of psychological hedonism. Andrews Reath, for one, has argued

that Kant is not committed to a hedonist position, an argument he develops in a pair of articles, 'Kant's

Theory of Moral Sensibility: Respect for the Moral Law and the Influence of the Inclinations,' and

'Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant's Principle of Happiness.'24 I don't intend to review Reath's position

in detail, but I would like to note key points with which I agree and a conclusion to which I would

object, or at least would want to qualify. To begin with, let's look at the hedonistic interpretation of

Kant against which Reath is working:

According to the hedonistic interpretation, it is a shared feature of non-moral choice that we are attracted to a course of action by the pleasure we expect. The desire for pleasure would then be the fundamental motive from which such actions result, and presumably the underlying cause by which they are to be explained. This interpretation errs on two counts: both by holding that non-moral conduct is motivated by the desire for pleasure, and by implying that this desire is the proximate cause of the relevant actions (or that some determination thereof leads directly to action).25

To begin with the second point, Reath argues that 'when Kant discusses the relation of

inclinations to feelings of pleasure, he is not adopting a view about the objects of inclinations, but

23 KpV 5:22.24 Reath, op cit, pp.8-32 and pp.33-66, respectively.25 Reath, p.44.

25

about their origin. He thought that feelings of pleasure play a role in the processes by which

inclinations are generated.'26 (An inclination ('Neigung') is an habitual desire.27 Kant quite plausibly

takes habitual desires, in contrast to random or isolated ones, to be the basis of an individual's project

of happiness: 'Alle Neigungen zusammen (die auch wohl in ein erträgliches System gebracht werden

können, und deren Befriedigung alsdann eigene Glückseligkeit heißt) machen die Selbstsucht

(solipsismus) aus.'28) Reath here takes Kant only to be making the very mild claim that 'feelings of

pleasure which an individual has experienced play some causal role in the processes by which natural

desires arise.'29 The point Kant wants to stress about actions motivated by inclinations is that they 'fall

under heteronomy because their underlying motives are caused by processes that do not involve the

will. The fact that feelings of pleasure play a role in these processes is not essential.'30

In a recent appendix to his article, Reath to some extent backs off these claims, acknowledging

that, in actions motivated by inclinations, feelings of pleasure play a much more immediate role in

determining the will than he had initially allowed.31 Kant indeed holds that, in every determination of

the will (or of choice - 'Willkür') according to material practical principles, i.e., all principles except for

the moral law, 'der Bestimmungsgrund der Willkür' is placed 'in der aus irgend eines Gegenstandes

Wirklichkeit zu empfindenden Lust oder Unlust' and this pleasure (Lust) is 'nur so fern praktisch, als

die Empfindung der Annehmlichkeit, die das Subjekt von der Wirklichkeit des Gegenstandes erwartet,

das Begehrungsvermögen bestimmt.'32 In other words, whenever our choice is governed by the

principle of happiness, it is the agreeableness expected from some object that 'determines the faculty of

desire.'

26 Reath, p.37.27 MdS 6:212.28 KpV 5:73.29 Reath, p.38.30 Reath, p.38.31 Reath, pp.57-59.32 KpV 5:22.

26

Now, it may seem that, once this point is conceded, Reath will have to concede the first point

also, i.e., that all non-moral conduct is, according to Kant, motivated by the desire for pleasure. But I

think Reath is right to resist such a conclusion, or at least to add important qualifications. In particular,

it's clear that Kant doesn't hold to any crudely egoistic version of psychological hedonism, according to

which the aim of every action from inclination is somehow the agent's own pleasure. We need only

note, for instance, Kant's description of the kinds of actions from inclination that a naturally

sympathetic person is likely to choose. He says that there are

manche so teilnehmend gestimmte Seelen, daß sie auch ohne einen andern Bewegungsgrund der Eitelkeit oder des Eigennutzes ein inneres Vergnügen daran finden, Freude um sich zu verbreiten, und die sich an der Zufriedenheit anderer, so fern sie ihr Werk ist, ergötzen können. Aber ich behaupte, daß in solchem Falle dergleichen Handlung, so pflichtmäßig, so liebenswürdig sie auch ist, dennoch keinen wahren sittlichen Werth habe, sondern mit andern Neigungen zu gleichen Paaren gehe [...]33

Here the naturally sympathetic agent is understood as acting from her natural inclination, from

the pleasure she finds in bringing joy and contentment to others, and therefore, according to Kant, as

acting under the general principle of happiness, or self-love. But it is clear that, while her sympathetic

inclinations are on the same level with other inclinations in the sense of falling under this general

principle, they are presented by Kant as sympathetic precisely in contrast to motives of 'vanity or self-

interest.' It doesn't seem reasonable to read such passages as though the aim and intention of the agent

are to reap her own pleasure.

That pleasure should be the determining ground of choice, but not the aim of the agent, is not

terribly paradoxical. We might well think that what moves an agent to act is on occasion quite distinct

from the particular goal or aim she represents to herself. (We'll see in chapter 2 that Schopenhauer

insists on such a discrepancy as inherent in every particular desire.) Indeed, given that Kant's account

of motivation from inclination in a sense begins with empirical causes, as sensible impulse and

33 G 4:398.

27

affection, and ends with rational choice, it is perhaps not surprising that the motive for action in such

cases seems to comprise two rather heterogeneous components, what we might call a motive force and

a motive of choice. By contrast, when the will is determined directly by the moral law, there is, as we'll

see below, essentially no discrepancy between the feeling (of respect) that moves us (yet without being

the determining ground of the will) and the end of the action; the feeling of respect is there just the

subjective experience (as incentive) of moral self-determination: 'Und so ist Achtung fürs Gesetze nicht

Triebfeder zur Sittlichkeit, sondern die Sittlichkeit selbst, subjektiv als Triebfeder betrachtet.' 34

The crucial contrast is that, in the case of motivation by the inclinations, the feeling of pleasure

produces the incentive on the basis of which the agent adopts her maxim. Her choice, i.e., the adoption

of a maxim, then falls under the general principle of happiness, because the feeling of pleasure is given

first 'als Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Bestimmung der Willkür.'35 So I think it is somewhat

misleading, even if not mistaken, when Reath, in spite of his concessions mentioned above, clarifies his

reasons for still not considering Kant to be committed to psychological hedonism as follows:

finding the thought of an object agreeable can be seen as a way of coming to have an interest in that object that is immediate, though conditional on the receptivity and dispositions of the subject – a way of taking interest that contrasts with interests produced by judgments of reason. But there is no implication that pleasure is the object of non-moral interest or the fundamental motive of choice that falls under the principle of happiness.36

This strikes me as somewhat misleading because it skirts the question of motive force. I agree

that Kant is not committed to the idea that the object of non-moral interest must be pleasure; Kant

insists that the object can be as varied as you like – a worthwhile book or a hunting trip, a stimulating

conversation or mealtime, benevolence to the poor or tickets to the theatre, etc.37 – the essential point,

as far as motivation and choice governed by the principle of happiness are concerned, is not the object

34 KpV 5:76.35 KpV 5:21.36 Reath, p.57.37 KpV 5:23.

28

of the representation, but the relation of the representation to the subject, more specifically whether the

representation gives rise to a feeling of pleasure in the agent, as the condition of its being a determining

ground of choice.38 I also agree that the 'motive of choice,' as Reath uses the term, need not be pleasure

on the Kantian account; even when adopting the principle of happiness as her overarching maxim, an

agent will generally deliberate in terms of all kinds of priorities – friendships, family, career, personal

fulfilment, etc. – that do not enter deliberation merely as so many different forms of, or paths to,

pleasure. As Reath puts the general point, the 'principle of happiness allows for rational criticism of

desires, as well as the formulation of ends and ideals that go beyond one's existing desires. Though this

form of deliberation must at some points accept certain desires and dispositions as given, the

deliberative process affects which desires are taken as given.'39

Although I think Reath is right to insist on these points, he downplays an essential, if not the

essential, point Kant wants to make about such 'heteronomous deliberation,' namely, that a feeling of

pleasure – in particular, the expectation of agreeableness in the object of choice – remains the

'determining ground' of the choice that ultimately issues from such deliberation. In other words, there

remains a motive force that Kant considers the determining ground of choice, and the fact that motive

force, or 'sensible impulse' or 'feeling,' rather than a fully rational motive of choice, is the determining

ground, is one way to understand what Kant means by heteronomy.

It's interesting to note that Reath acknowledges that some readers may reject his interpretation

'on the grounds that Kant often discusses motivation in terms that suggest the metaphor of mechanical

force. For example, Kant says that through respect “the relative weightiness of the law ... is produced in

the judgment of reason through the removal of the counterweight” (KpV 5:76).'40 As Reath points out

'such metaphors are consistently embedded in discussions in which the theme is a struggle for

38 KpV 5:23.39 Reath, p.54.40 Reath, p.30, note 26.

29

authority, sovereignty, superiority, and so on, in which it is the claims or pretensions that are being

opposed to each other.'41 Once again, I agree with this last statement, so far as examples such as the one

Reath here chooses are concerned. I also agree, as mentioned previously, that Kant's overall and more

considered account of motivation cannot be understood along the lines of mechanical force metaphors.

However, in section 1.4, we'll see that the more striking examples in which Kant speaks of motivation

in terms of mechanical force – and not merely metaphorically – are found in those places where he

speaks of what human agency would amount to, were the inclinations our only source of motivation.

This way of speaking raises a number of difficulties for Kant, as I'll explain in sections 1.4 and 1.5.

First, we need to quickly note Kant's account of genuinely moral motivation and action. So far,

we have looked mainly at his account of motivation by the inclinations.

1.3 Respect for the law and the Fact of Reason

In the opening sections of KpV, Kant argues, as we've seen, that no maxim grounded in an

interest based on feeling can ever be suitable as a practical law, since it is always contingent on the

feeling in question, and therefore not applicable 'categorically' to rational beings. The question, then, is

whether there is any interest that belongs categorically to rational beings, i.e., to every rational being by

its very nature as such. Kant in fact approaches this question by first determining what a practical law

for rational beings would look like. He argues that, since material practical principles are ruled out, a

practical law would have to be a 'formal principle' of will-determination, that is, a practical law must

issue commands regarding the form of the maxims rational beings are to adopt, not directly regarding

their material ends. There is thus only one overarching practical law, the the moral law, commanding as

follows: 'Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Princip einer allgemeinen

Gesetzgebung gelten könne.'42

41 Reath, p.30, note 26.42 KpV 5:30.

30

I don't want to spend much time on the shape Kant here gives to the moral law, since it isn't

central to my concerns in this chapter. The more interesting question here, and the one that has

generally been most puzzling to readers, is that of the confirmation or deduction of the practical law as

a law for us as rational beings/human beings. This brings us back to the question of an interest shared

by all rational beings, or at least by all human beings on the basis of their nature as rational beings.

(There is some ambiguity here, because, while it is clear that Kant holds that we are subject to the

moral law merely as rational beings, and that Kant thinks the moral law must apply with 'practical

necessity' to all rational beings, finite rational beings must experience an incentive, and take an interest,

in the moral law, in order for it to be possible for them to in fact act morally. For us human beings, the

incentive and interest are experienced as the feeling of respect for the moral law (which is not to say

the interest is based on this feeling), and therefore depend on our sensible constitution. I will return to

these points below and in chapter 2, noting in particular that, in the Religion, Kant explicitly allows that

there could be finite rational beings who take no interest in the moral law.)

Kant's answer, as it turns out, is startlingly straightforward, and, partly for this reason, may

leave the reader initially somewhat underwhelmed and unconvinced. Kant insists not only that 'the

most common human reason' takes an interest in the moral law, independently of all inclinations, but

that the most common human reason can immediately distinguish between a 'pure' interest of reason,

and an interest based on inclination.43 According to Kant, we need only ask ourselves, in any moment

of doubt as to our moral duty, whether the maxim on which we propose to act would be suitable as a

universal practical principle, i.e., as a practical law, for rational beings. If we undertake such reflection

and find that our maxim is not suitable as a practical law, then we cannot help but recognize that the

43 Kant uses a variety of similar expressions in this context, from 'most common human reason' and 'most common understanding' to 'most common human being.' Here is a selection: 'der gemeinste Verstand ohne Unterweisung' (5:27), 'selbst für den gemeinsten Menschen' (5:35), 'das gemeinste Auge' (5:36), 'selbst der gemeinsten Menschenvernunft natürlich und leicht bemerkt' (5:87), 'aus dem gemeinsten praktischen Vernunftgebrauche' (5:91), 'jede natürliche Menschenvernunft' (5:91), 'das Urtheil des gemeinen Menschenverstandes' (5:91).

31

moral law forbids acting on such a maxim. Recognition in this sense is not simply a matter of knowing

theoretically that some maxim cannot validly be seen as a practical law; rather it is a motivational state,

in which the pretensions of the inclinations to govern one's choice are struck down, and which is

characterized by the feeling of respect 'als Bewußtsein der unmittelbaren Nötigung des Willens durchs

Gesetz.'44

Pure reason in this way announces itself, as it were, as practical, and produces an immediate

interest in the moral law. The capacity to determine one's will immediately by the moral law, i.e.,

independently of all inclination, is thus given as a 'fact' of pure reason, so called, 'weil man es nicht aus

vorhergehenden Datis der Vernunft, z.B. dem Bewußtsein der Freiheit (denn dieses ist uns nicht vorher

gegeben), herausvernünfteln kann, sondern weil es sich für sich selbst uns aufdringt als synthetischer

Satz a priori, der auf keiner, weder reinen noch empirischen Anschauung gegründet ist [...]'45 Although

the capacity of pure reason to act as the determining ground of the will is thus given as a fact, Kant

stresses that it is not given in the way empirical facts are, since the givenness of the latter depends on

intuition. So we must, 'um dieses Gesetz ohne Mißdeutung als gegeben anzusehen, wohl bemerken: daß

es kein empirisches, sondern das einzige Faktum der reinen Vernunft, die sich als ursprünglich

gesetzgebend (sic volo, sic jubeo) ankündigt.'46

Kant illustrates the fact of reason and the associated moral motivation through his 'gallows

example.' It's somewhat confusing that he gives this example in the Remark to 'Problem II,' which

problem is to find the law that is alone competent to determine the will necessarily, assuming that the

will is free. As mentioned above, Kant's strategy is to first assume that the will is free, in order to find

the practical law that ought, on this assumption, to determine such a will. Yet in a remark to Problem II,

44 KpV 5:117.45 KpV 5:31. See also the characterization of 'Faktum' that Kant gives at 5:55: 'Die objektive Realität eines reinen Willens,

oder, welches einerlei ist, einer reinen praktischen Vernunft ist im moralischen Gesetze a priori gleichsam durch ein Faktum gegeben; denn so kann man eine Willensbestimmung nennen, die unvermeidlich ist, ob sie gleich nicht auf empirischen Prinzipien beruht.'

46 KpV 5:31.

32

which is ostensibly to be solved while still taking freedom of the will as a working assumption, Kant

suddenly gives an illustration of the fact of reason, through which the will proves itself to be free. He

then gives a statement of the moral law, makes appeal to the fact of reason, declares pure reason

practical (and thus the will free) and states that the fact of reason is 'undeniable.'47 The fact of reason is

thus introduced somewhat casually, considering that, as Kant's subsequent discussion in 'Von der

Deduktion der Grundsätze der reinen praktischen Vernunft' makes clear, the deduction of principles in

KpV rests squarely on the fact of reason.48 Here is Kant's presentation of the fact of reason in the

gallows example:

Setzet, daß jemand von seiner wollüstigen Neigung vorgibt, sie sei, wenn ihm der beliebte Gegenstand und die Gelegenheit dazu vorkämen, für ihn ganz unwiderstehlich, ob, wenn ein Galgen vor dem Hause, da er diese Gelegenheit trifft, aufgerichtet wäre, um ihn sogleich nach genossener Wollust daran zu knüpfen, er alsdann nicht seine Neigung bezwingen würde. Man darf nicht lange raten, was er antworten würde. Fragt ihn aber, ob, wenn sein Fürst ihm, unter Androhung derselben unverzögerten Todesstrafe, zumutete, ein falsches Zeugnis wider einen ehrlichen Mann, den er gerne unter scheinbaren Vorwänden verderben möchte, abzulegen, ob er da, so groß auch seine Liebe zum Leben sein mag, sie wohl zu überwinden für möglich halte. Ob er es tun würde, oder nicht, wird er vielleicht sich nicht getrauen zu versichern; daß es ihm aber möglich sei, muß er ohne Bedenken einräumen. Er urteilet also, daß er etwas kann, darum weil er sich bewußt ist, daß er es soll, und erkennt in sich die Freiheit, die ihm sonst ohne das moralische Gesetz unbekannt geblieben wäre.49

Kant asks us to consider a man who claims that his lustful inclination is irresistible. Kant first

undermines the claim by noting, presumably as self-evident, that the man's inclination to save his life

would certainly win out against his lustful inclination, should these be opposed to one another. But this

is obviously not evidence of freedom in the sense Kant is after. The point seems to be that 'love of life'

is a kind of ultimate inclination, a point which is perhaps reasonable insofar as being alive is a

necessary condition for satisfying any other inclination. As such, if we ever find it possible to act

47 KpV 5:30-32.48 See, especially, KpV 5:46-48.49 KpV 5:30. My interpretation of the gallows example and of the rationes cognoscendi and essendi has been greatly

influenced by Paul Franks, All or Nothing (Harvard University Press, 2005), 260-298.

33

against the love of life, the motivation to do so must come from some source other than inclination.

Interpreting the love of life in this way fits well with the context of Kant’s gallows example, but

it presents difficulties as well. First, as we'll see in the next section, Kant claims that if the inclinations

were our only source of motivation, our agency would be 'mechanical,' fully determined by

phenomenal causality. What sense are we then to make of two inclinations 'colliding,' as in the gallows

example? In particular, can we make sense of any form of deliberation here, even merely instrumental,

if we are fully determined mechanically? (Or is the idea instead that motivation exclusively by the

inclinations would reduce us to a kind of animality, i.e., that even instrumental deliberation would

necessarily be absent if pure reason were not of itself practical?) These questions are addressed in the

following section.

Second, it doesn't seem particularly obvious that the only source of motivation capable of

overcoming the love of life is one necessarily tied to the moral law. We might think it unlikely that a

person's lustful inclination will overcome his love of life, but a suitably profound inclination to

revenge, or to power or love or honour, might. I'll mainly ignore this second difficulty here, since it

doesn't relate directly to my argument.

Finally, then, we come to the crux of the gallows example in the opposition between moral duty

and inclination, specifically, in the moral duty not to give false testimony against an innocent person,

even if fulfilling this duty should cost you your life. Kant's question is not of the likelihood that the

hypothetical agent would actually carry out his moral duty, but only whether he can do so. Kant's

answer here has sometimes been derided as an entirely question-begging affirmation that 'ought implies

can.' What Kant actually says, though, is that the agent judges that he can do something, because he is

aware that he ought to do it. As mentioned above, to recognize the moral law as one's duty in this way

is to take a direct interest in it, i.e., to be in a motivational state in relation to the law. If the agent then

makes this interest into the basis of the maxim on which he acts, his will is thereby determined directly

34

by (his immediate interest in) the moral law. Kant uses cases, like the gallows example, where the

command of duty is contrary to all inclination, in order to bring out more clearly that a direct interest in

the moral law is possible, i.e., an interest independent of all inclinations. Thus the motivational state in

which recognition of the moral law consists is itself consciousness of an activity of practical reason that

is independent of the inclinations, and therefore of all merely subjective grounds for determining the

will: 'Die Anerkennung des moralischen Gesetzes aber ist das Bewußtsein einer Tätigkeit der

praktischen Vernunft aus objektiven Gründen.'50 (This is of course not to say that the agent necessarily

has any articulate theoretical or philosophical grasp of the 'activity of practical reason from objective

grounds' as such.)

Kant claims, in the sentence immediately preceding the longer quotation above, in which the

gallows example is presented, 'auch die Erfahrung bestätigt diese Ordnung der Begriffe in uns.' The

concepts in question are those of freedom and of the moral law, and the order Kant has in mind is that it

is 'das moralische Gesetz, dessen wir uns unmittelbar bewußt werden (so bald wir uns Maximen des

Willens entwerfen), welches sich uns zuerst darbietet, und, indem die Vernunft jenes als einen durch

keine sinnlichen Bedingungen zu überwiegenden, ja davon gänzlich unabhängigen Bestimmungsgrund

darstellt, gerade auf den Begriff der Freiheit führt.'51 Thus we only come to a positive concept of

freedom through our prior recognition of being bound by the moral law. As Kant puts it in a note in the

Preface to KpV, we should recall 'daß die Freiheit allerdings die ratio essendi des moralischen Gesetzes,

das moralische Gesetz aber die ratio cognescendi der Freiheit sei.'52

The motivational state in which the recognition of the moral law consists is described by Kant

mainly by drawing careful distinctions between different feelings and their respective sources. Kant

describes these in greatest detail in 'Von den Triebfedern der reinen praktischen Vernunft,' in Chapter 3

50 KpV 5:79.51 KpV 5:29-30.52 KpV 5:4.

35

of the Analytic in KpV, where he proposes to explain the effects pure practical reason has on sensibility.

(This chapter of KpV is thus the analogue, for practical reason, of the first Critique's 'Aesthetic' for

theoretical reason). I will now briefly summarize the account Kant gives there of the motivational

elements involved in recognition of the moral law, noting in particular the interpretation Kant gives of

the feeling of respect as a manifestation of pure practical reason itself.

At the outset of this account, Kant again stresses that, for us, it is simply a fact that pure reason

is practical. Since we can have no real insight into how a direct interest in the moral law is possible,

Kant's aim is merely to show what effect the moral law has on the mind: 'Denn wie ein Gesetz für sich

und unmittelbar Bestimmungsgrund des Willens sein könne, (welches doch das Wesentliche aller

Moralität ist,) das ist ein für die menschliche Vernunft unauflösliches Problem und mit dem einerlei:

wie ein freier Wille möglich sei. Also werden wir nicht den Grund, woher das moralische Gesetz in

sich eine Triebfeder abgebe, sondern was, so fern es eine solche ist, sie im Gemüte wirkt, (besser zu

sagen, wirken muß,) a priori anzuzeigen haben.'53

In other words, we have no real insight into the freedom of the will, beyond the effects of this

freedom on our mind and sensibility. Yet the objective reality of pure practical reason is given 'a priori'

in the moral law through a fact that is independent of any empirical principles,54 and in which is

revealed the freedom of the will even to reject the inclinations and any other empirical influences on

the ground of its determination.55 The somewhat curious result is that we thus have a certain a priori

insight into the ground and necessity of a feeling: 'Folglich können wir a priori einsehen, daß das

moralische Gesetz als Bestimmungsgrund des Willens dadurch, daß es allen unseren Neigungen

Eintrag tut, ein Gefühl bewirken müsse, welches Schmerz genannt werden kann, und hier haben wir

nun den ersten, vielleicht auch einzigen Fall, da wir aus Begriffen a priori das Verhältnis eines

53 KpV 5:72.54 KpV 5:55. (See note 45 above.)55 KpV 5:72.

36

Erkenntnisses (hier ist es einer reinen praktischen Vernunft) zum Gefühl der Lust oder Unlust

bestimmen konnten.'56

Insofar as the moral law, as the determining ground of the will, thus 'thwarts' all our

inclinations, it is merely painful and merely negative. However, insofar as the moral law thereby also

weakens self-conceit ('Eigendünkel'), which would like to make the principle of happiness into a law

for the will, it is at the same time 'an sich etwas Positives' and 'ein Gegenstand der Achtung, und indem

es ihn sogar niederschlägt, d.i. demütigt, ein Gegenstand der größten Achtung, mithin auch der Grund

eines positiven Gefühls, das nicht empirischen Ursprungs ist, und a priori erkannt wird.'57 Here the

feeling of respect, though a positive feeling, is not an incentive to the moral law, since it can only first

arise through the agent's recognition of the authority of the moral law; as Kant puts it, respect is 'nicht

Triebfeder zur Sittlichkeit, sondern sie ist die Sittlichkeit selbst, subjektiv als Triebfeder betrachtet.'58

Using a distinction suggested earlier, we might say that the feeling of respect, unlike the feeling of

pleasure produced by the representation of a desired object, is not a motive force, but merely reflects,

or accompanies, the motive of choice insofar as the agent's choice is governed directly by the moral

law. While Kant describes the feeling of agreeableness, in its moral and motivational significance, as

one and the same regardless of the representation or object to which it is linked, the feeling of respect is

directly tied to recognition of the moral law and practical cognition of freedom: 'Also ist Achtung fürs

moralische Gesetz ein Gefühl, welches durch einen intellektuellen Grund gewirkt wird, und dieses

Gefühl ist das einzige, welches wir völlig a priori erkennen, und dessen Notwendigkeit wir einsehen

können.'59

The feeling of respect is, in this sense, a 'moral feeling' and is produced from reason alone.60 It

56 KpV 5:73.57 KpV 5:73.58 KpV 5:76.59 KpV 5:73.60 KpV 5:76.

37

is 'so eigentümlicher Art, daß es lediglich der Vernunft, und zwar der praktischen reinen Vernunft, zu

Gebote zu stehen scheint.'61 Since it is not produced pathologically, but practically,62 the feeling of

respect is distinct from pleasure and pain; it exerts no influence as motive force, and is therefore

removed from any hedonistic calculation of desire-satisfaction implied by the principle of happiness:

'Nun aber ist es ein Gefühl, was bloß aufs Praktische geht, und zwar der Vorstellung eines Gesetzes

lediglich seiner Form nach, nicht irgend eines Objekts desselben wegen, anhängt, mithin weder zum

Vergnügen, noch zum Schmerze gerechnet werden kann [...]'63

I want to highlight three points from this discussion of the effects of pure practical reason on the

mind and sensibility. First, the feeling of respect is clearly, for Kant, the most striking empirical

manifestation of reason. (It is an empirical manifestation since, although it cannot be explained by

empirical principles and is 'unzertrennlich mit der Vorstellung des moralischen Gesetzes in jedem

endlichen vernünftigen Wesen verbunden,'64 the feeling of respect must nonetheless, as a feeling, be

given in inner sense, even if not grounded there.65) It is tempting, given the wording Kant uses in some

of the quotations above, to say that the feeling of respect is indeed the empirical embodiment of reason.

There are a several reasons, however, to think that Kant would object to this characterization. Perhaps

most important, Kant wants to keep very clear that the feeling of respect doesn't supply any standard

for moral judgment, which is given instead by the moral law as universal practical principle; respect is

simply the incentive through which we humans, as pathologically affected rational beings, can adopt

maxims on the basis of an immediate interest in the moral law.66 Moreover, Kant wants to maintain the

distinction, at least conceptually, between recognition of the moral law (and, with it, the feeling of

respect) as ratio cognoscendi of freedom, and freedom itself as ratio essendi of the moral law. This

61 KpV 5:76.62 KpV 5:75.63 KpV 5:80. See also 5:91-92 and 5:78.64 KpV 5:80.65 KpV 5:80.66 KpV 5:76.

38

distinction makes the identification of freedom with noumenal causality more plausible, a point I'll take

up in section 1.4 below. Finally, Kant himself qualifies, in KU, the 'a priori cognition' of the feeling of

respect, noting, in reference to KpV:

Zwar haben wir in der Kritik der praktischen Vernunft wirklich das Gefühl der Achtung (als eine besondere und eigentümliche Modifikation dieses Gefühls, welches weder mit der Lust noch Unlust, die wir von empirischen Gegenständen bekommen, recht übereintreffen will) von allgemeinen sittlichen Begriffen a priori abgeleitet. Aber wir konnten dort auch die Grenzen der Erfahrung überschreiten, und eine Kausalität, die auf einer übersinnlichen Beschaffenheit des Subjekts beruhte, nämlich die der Freiheit, herbeirufen. Allein selbst da leiteten wir eigentlich nicht dieses Gefühl von der Idee des Sittlichen als Ursache her, sondern bloß die Willensbestimmung wurde davon abgeleitet.67

This passage is somewhat cagey, in first claiming to have derived the feeling of respect a priori from

universal moral concepts, and then replacing the claim with one to the effect of having derived, not the

feeling of respect from the idea of morality as cause, but of having derived therefrom only the

determination of will. As I'll explain in section 1.4, this seems to reflect a concern to keep the causality

of pure practical reason 'free' from the phenomenal realm, in the sense of not infringing upon

phenomenal causality.

The second point I want to highlight is that the feeling of respect takes us 'beyond' the

opposition of pleasure and pain, insofar as Kant describes respect as a positive feeling whose negative

aspect is a painful humiliation of self-conceit. Kant, as quoted above, says that respect is neither

pleasure nor pain; we might also note that it essentially involves both. As I'll also discuss further below,

the point is not that acting morally necessarily involves an opposition of duty and inclination, but that

development of the moral disposition does depend on occasions of conflict between duty and the

inclinations, occasions in which the agent wills a painful rejection of inclinations, which itself yields

both satisfaction in the resulting moral action68 and a contentment with oneself in some ways analogous

67 KU §12, 5:222.68 KpV 5:116-117.

39

to happiness.69

The third and final point I want to highlight is that Kant quite clearly insists that pure practical

reason produces effects on sensibility that can be explained only by appeal to transcendental freedom,

'welche als Unabhängigkeit von allem Empirischen und also von der Natur überhaupt gedacht werden

muß [...]'70 Once again the distinction between ratio cognoscendi and ratio essendi is important. It is

only through the effects of pure practical reason on our sensible, empirical nature that we have any

awareness of our transcendental freedom, but the cause of these effects must be placed outside of

empirical nature: 'das sinnliche Gefühl, was allen unseren Neigungen zum Grunde liegt, [ist] zwar die

Bedingung derjenigen Empfindung, die wir Achtung nennen, aber die Ursache der Bestimmung

desselben liegt in der reinen praktischen Vernunft, und diese Empfindung kann daher, ihres Ursprunges

wegen, nicht pathologisch, sondern muß praktisch gewirkt heißen.'71

The feeling of respect straddles the transcendental and the empirical, or the noumenal and the

phenomenal, realms in this rather unique way, namely, as a particular empirical effect of a noumenal

causality. The moral law is 'objektiv, d.i. in der Vorstellung der reinen Vernunft, ein unmittelbarer

Bestimmungsgrund des Willens,'72 and in relation to it, the feeling of respect cannot act as motive force,

but is simply 'morality itself, considered subjectively as incentive,' as noted earlier. In relation to the

inclinations, however, respect, in its negative aspect as 'die Demütigung auf der sinnlichen Seite,' 73 does

have an effect on motivation, by striking down the influence of the inclinations on the determining

ground of the will. And while the representation of the moral law by reason is alone the positive ground

of determination for a morally determined will, the painful humiliation of self-conceit itself removes an

obstacle from the 'Tätigkeit der praktischen Vernunft aus objektiven Gründen, die bloß darum nicht ihre

69 KpV 5:117.70 KpV 5:97.71 KpV 5:75.72 KpV 5:79.73 KpV 5:79.

40

Wirkung in Handlungen äußert, weil subjektive Ursachen (pathologische) sie hindern.'74

Taking up again our earlier distinction between motive force and motive of choice, it's clear

that, 'objectively considered,' Kant attributes no motive force to the feeling of respect. Subjectively

considered, however, respect, in striking down the influence of the inclinations, does seem to act partly

as motive force. This isn't to say that the influence of the inclinations amounts simply to a kind of

mechanical pull (or push) of pleasure (or pain), but only that such a non-rational push or pull is part of

how the inclinations present themselves as incentives, and thereby as possible subjective grounds for

maxims. The maxim itself is something the agent can cite, with greater or less right, as a justification

and explanation of her action. So I think that acknowledging an element of motive force, somewhat

along the lines of a mechanical push or pull, in the influence of the inclinations is perfectly compatible

with the position Reath adopts in passages like the following:

One element of ordinary moral consciousness is a readiness to submit your actions to public scrutiny and to supply reasons and explanations of a certain kind. On Kant's view, this procedure is initiated by citing the maxim of your action, which commits you to view it, at least initially, as a sufficient explanation for what you did. The presumption is that someone who understands your maxim can at some level accept your way of acting.75

Thus I would agree also that recognizing the authority of the moral law 'is not a question of

countering one kind of affective force by another that is stronger.'76 At least, this is not primarily what

recognizing the authority of the moral law is about. It is rather, in the first instance, about recognizing

that maxims based on inclination offer no justification for actions that conflict with the moral law; the

authority of the moral law overrules any such purported justifications, and strikes down their

presumption. At the same time, however, the effect on sensibility is, in part, to drain the motive force

from the inclinations, to counter, in particular, the non-rational pull of expected pleasure, or at least to

hold this force in check.

74 KpV 5:79.75 Reath, p.19.76 Reath, p.18.

41

At least, this seems to me to be Kant's considered view, namely that inclinations exert a certain

non-rational motive force on us, but that, as rational beings, we cannot simply be mechanically

determined to actions, so long as we are in control of our rational faculties – and in the extreme cases

where we are not, it's probably best to say that we are not acting in any clear sense of the word. We

now have to address, however, a series of passages in which Kant affirms that, were the inclinations our

only source of motivation, i.e., were we not free in the full transcendental sense, then we would be

reduced to 'bloßen Mechanismus.'77

1.4 Coordinating the first two Critiques' conceptions of freedom: the ambiguous role of the inclinations

In his second Remark to Theorem IV (establishing autonomy as the principle of all moral laws

and duties), Kant criticizes those who take a 'moral sense,' and not reason, to determine the moral law,

so that 'das Bewußtsein der Tugend unmittelbar mit Zufriedenheit und Vergnügen, das des Lasters aber

mit Seelenunruhe und Schmerz verbunden wäre.'78 We can skip the details of his criticism here, and

simply note his conclusion that, if we were to accept this notion of a moral sense, we would thereby

make the moral law, which can only be thought through reason, into an object of sensation, 'welches,

wenn es nicht ein platter Widerspruch werden soll, allen Begriff der Pflicht ganz aufheben, und an

deren Statt bloß ein mechanisches Spiel feinerer, mit den gröberen bisweilen in Zwist geratender,

Neigungen setzen würde.'79

We would, that is, be reduced to a mere mechanical play of inclinations if practical reason could

not of itself supply a determining ground of the will. We might think, in the context of this critique of a

putative moral sense, that Kant's statement is rather more rhetorical than the articulation of a

considered position. But in the 'Kritische Beleuchtung der Analytik der reinen praktischen Vernunft,'

77 KpV 5:147.78 KpV 5:38.79 KpV 5:39.

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Kant reaffirms this position in the course of an extended and technical discussion of freedom. In

particular, he insists that so long as we take the ground of a subject's existence to be in time, it is

irrelevant to freedom whether we then take the determining grounds of this subject's actions to be

representations in inner sense, and thus merely in time, or physical objects in outer sense, in both space

and time: 'Eben um deswillen kann man auch alle Notwendigkeit der Begebenheiten in der Zeit nach

dem Naturgesetze der Kausalität, den Mechanismus der Natur nennen, ob man gleich darunter nicht

versteht, daß Dinge, die ihm unterworfen sind, wirkliche materielle Maschinen sein müßten.'80 So long

as we ignore the key insight of transcendental idealism that space and time are merely forms of our

intuition, and not properties of things-in-themselves, we inevitably understand our existence as

completely determined in time, in which case any 'freedom' we might have would be 'im Grunde nichts

besser, als die Freiheit eines Bratenwenders [...] der auch, wenn er einmal aufgezogen worden, von

selbst seine Bewegungen verrichtet.'81

These claims are somewhat startling, when read in light of the Kantian account of motivation

discussed so far. The easiest thing to say is that Kant is here talking per impossibile, since he, of course,

holds that we are transcendentally free, and so he is simply bringing out the absurdity, or at least

unpalatability, of the opposing position. But there is another crucial context here, since Kant, in

coordinating the conceptions of freedom appearing in the first and second Critiques, respectively,

identifies freedom from determination by the inclinations with freedom from mechanical

determination, i.e., from determination by phenomenal causality. This identification is already fairly

clear from the discussion thus far, since the transcendental freedom that is here opposed to mechanical

determination is of course the same freedom described, in the moral determination of the will, as

independence from the inclinations. Kant also, though, gives an extended and explicit discussion of this

point, particularly at 5:47-49, noting that the idea of a noumenon as unconditioned causality was, in the

80 KpV 5:97.81 KpV 5:97.

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first Critique, 'defended' by speculative reason and established negatively as at least not contradictory,

keeping an empty place open, 'um das Unbedingte dahin zu versetzen. [...] Diesen leeren Platz füllt nun

reine praktische Vernunft, durch ein bestimmtes Gesetz der Kausalität in einer intelligibelen Welt,

(durch Freiheit,) nämlich das moralische Gesetz, aus.'82

From the practical perspective of KpV itself, Kant distinguishes between a negative and a

positive concept of freedom.83 The negative concept is that of the will's independence 'von aller Materie

des Gesetzes (nämlich einem begehrten Objekte),'84 in particular, from the influence of the inclinations.

Now, the negative concept of freedom secured in the first Critique is that of independence from

determination by phenomenal causality. I think, in light of the coordination of the two Critiques noted

in the previous paragraph, it's fairly clear that part of what Kant has in mind when he says that, without

transcendental freedom, we would be reduced to a mere mechanical play of inclinations, is precisely

the identity, implied by this coordination, of the two negative concepts of freedom given in the first and

second Critiques, respectively.

Now, when the first Critique holds an empty place open for noumenal causality, Kant makes

clear that, if there is such a thing, noumenal causality cannot infringe on phenomenal causality. He says

the same thing about the moral law in KpV: 'Dieses Gesetz soll der Sinnenwelt, als einer sinnlichen

Natur, (was die vernünftigen Wesen betrifft,) die Form einer Verstandeswelt d.i. einer übersinnlichen

Natur verschaffen, ohne doch jener ihrem Mechanismus Abbruch zu tun.'85

But there's a serious difficulty here. The positive conception of freedom in KpV is spelled out,

as we saw above, in terms of its effects on sensibility. These are effects in the empirical realm, and they

most definitely include infringing on the inclinations. If Kant holds each of: 1. that being reduced to

inclinations as our only source of motivation amounts to being mechanically determined, i.e.,

82 KpV 5:49.83 KpV 5:33.84 KpV 5:33.85 KpV 5:43.

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completely determined by phenomenal causality, 2. that practical reason positively fills out, with its

concept of freedom, the space left empty by speculative reason for noumenal causality, and 3. that the

concept secured negatively by speculative reason is that of a causality of freedom that must not infringe

on phenomenal causality – then it would seem that Kant should also hold 4. that practical reason's

positive concept of freedom should not allow for infringement on the inclinations, nor, more generally,

for particular effects of freedom in the phenomenal realm.

Kant has a coordination problem. In the remainder of this section, I'll consider the ways in

which we might try, ultimately unsuccessfully, I think, to avoid this conclusion.

Let's suppose, then, that inclinations are the only source of motivation, and see what this does to

the Kantian account of motivation. That is, we suppose that the determining ground of desire is always

given through the expectation of pleasure caused by the representation of some object or activity. Why

should this reduce us to 'mere mechanism'? If the faculty of feeling, itself determined causally by

objects or representations of them, in turn directly determined the faculty of desire, then the chain of

events producing motivation would indeed seem to link each state to the next as cause to effect. But

this supposition doesn't quite fit the Kantian picture. Even when I act on inclination, it is not, at least

not generally, my faculty of feeling that directly determines my faculty of desire. Even if every choice I

make is ultimately governed by the principle of happiness, I nonetheless have to deliberate and make

countless evaluations in order to bring my inclinations into some kind of 'manageable system of

happiness.'86 It remains for my faculty of reason to issue the imperatives that determine my will in

accordance with the means to attain the ends constituting my project of happiness.87 Though happiness

86 KpV 5:73.87 Note that this point is not in dispute in a well-known debate between Stephen Engstrom and Henry Allison. (See

Engstrom, 'Allison on Rational Agency' 405-418 and Allison, 'Kant on Freedom: A Reply to my Critics' 443-464, both found in Inquiry, 36:4 (1993).) Their question is, roughly, whether practical freedom could amount to anything more than merely instrumental deliberation without yet being the full-blown transcendental freedom of a will determinable directly by the moral law. Allison argues that, for the Kant of the first Critique, apparently so, while Engstrom questions this. I am asking here whether even simple instrumental deliberation can be understood as mere mechanism, completely determined by phenomenal causes.Now, it might be suggested that for Kant (by the time of KpV, say), even instrumental deliberation depends on full-blown

45

is the overarching principle, reason must still deliberate in light of this goal and issue its hypothetical

imperatives, or 'counsels.'88

The question, then, is what sense we can make of the notion that such instrumental deliberation

would be reduced to 'mere mechanism,' if the inclinations were our only source of motivation. As noted

above, mechanical determination means, for Kant, determination in time, such that every event is fully

determined by a previous event. Applied to agency and deliberation, this would mean that empirical

psychology, as such a causally deterministic, i.e., 'mechanical,' account of the relevant phenomena, is in

principle complete, i.e., a full explanation of motivation and action.89 In the absence of transcendental

freedom, this seems reasonable, since the elements necessary for such an account of deliberation – the

agent's representations of possible actions and outcomes, the pleasures and expectations aroused

thereby, etc. – are given in inner intuition and are thus, on the Kantian view, phenomenal, and so

belong to the temporally and causally structured world of experience.90

But if we allow that, barring the existence of noumenal causes, such an empirical psychology is

possible, then, given Kant's insistence on the non-infringement of noumenal causality on the

transcendental freedom. That is, Kant would hold that, if we lacked transcendental freedom, we could not even deliberate, but would rather simply pursue our desires – or mere instincts – in some more 'animalistic' sense. Accepting this suggestion would in fact make my main point in this section even easier to reach. For what I claim is, in brief, the following. Kant cannot consistently claim both (i) that, absent the transcendental freedom of noumenal causality, we are reduced to mere mechanism and (ii) that noumenal causality in no way infringes on the phenomenal. For his gallows example describes effects of this noumenal causality – e.g. the feelings of respect and humiliation – that belong to the phenomenal realm (in inner sense) and that conflict with any account of agency given in terms of mere mechanism. The present section of my paper argues this point in detail, assuming that Kant intends instrumental deliberation as part of the 'merely mechanical' account. The contradiction, in the respective characterizations of certain phenomenal (or empirical) elements of agency, between, on the one hand, the merely mechanical account of agency and, on the other, the account of agency that assumes transcendental freedom, is even more pronounced if we exclude even instrumental deliberation from the former.

88 KpV 5:26. Imperatives in this case are counsels, because happiness is not a determinate object, and there are not, therefore, any fixed determinate means to attain it; reason has to reflect on what determinate objects and aims are to be subsumed under the empirical idea of happiness.

89 KpV 5:94-100.90 This isn't to say such elements, given in inner intuition, are objects of experience. To say that representations belong to

the phenomenal world is not to say that they necessarily represent objects, for many might not cohere with experience or even possible experience. However, the point here is that if deliberation is to be understood as mere mechanism of nature, then the elements of such deliberation must fit, at least in principle, into a causal account such that each 'state' of the deliberation is determined by the previous.

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phenomenal, and specifically of the moral law on the sensible world,91 we should still be able to give

the same account even if there are noumenal causes. We may then have to admit that our phenomenal

account no longer tells the whole story – but it must not be invalidated as far is it goes, just as the

validity of phenomenal-causal scientific explanations cannot be disturbed by the existence of noumenal

causes. Here we come to the crucial difference between the mutual non-infringement of noumenal and

phenomenal causality, in the first Critique, and the interplay of practical reason with the inclinations, in

the second. The latter case involves (occasions of) conflict, including particular empirical effects of

practical reason; the former expressly forbids conflict and infringement. I'll give now an outline of the

argument; one point in particular may seem suspect.

Here is the basic structure:

A. Suppose the only possible source of motivation is inclination.

B. According to Kant, it follows that agency is reduced to mere mechanism of nature. Thus we should, in principle, be able to give a complete phenomenal-causal account of agency (including deliberation).

But noumenal causality, if there is such a thing, in no way infringes on phenomenal causality.

C. Therefore, whether or not there is such a thing as noumenal causality, a phenomenal-causal account of agency (including deliberation) is possible in principle.

The latter is an awkward conclusion, because it seems to make noumenal causality entirely superfluous,

and is in any case impossible to square with key elements of KpV already considered, a point I review

towards the end of this section.

Someone might, however, object that the supposition in point 1 above is equivalent, for Kant, to

assuming that there is no freedom, and therefore no such thing as noumenal causality. And if the scope

of this supposition covers the entire argument, then it is meaningless to talk, as in C, of 'whether or not

there is such a thing as noumenal causality.' It was assumed there isn't, and without this assumption,

91 KpV 5:43, quoted above.

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point B would not follow. That is, this objection affects the validity of the argument by blocking point

B. But then the objection itself concedes that if there is such thing as noumenal causality (i.e. as

transcendental freedom) then there can be no phenomenal-causal account of deliberation (for otherwise

the objection does not block point B). This is not to concede that there is conflict between phenomenal

and noumenal causality, but it is to acknowledge that the phenomenal world, as a whole, could not be

the same in the case where there is no noumenal causality as in the case where there is. (The latter

acknowledgment is obvious from the broad viewpoint of Kant's philosophy, since clearly there could be

no phenomenal world at all without noumena. But the point here is of course that we, like Kant, are

considering what to say of the case, ultimately understood as merely hypothetical, where inclinations

are our only possible source of motivation.)

Thus we could allow that certain features of our world – e.g., the feeling of respect for the law,

the conflict of this feeling with the inclinations (i.e., the humiliation of self-conceit) – would not be

possible if practical reason were not transcendentally free as a noumenal causality. But this doesn't

mean that practical reason, as such a noumenal causality, itself interferes with the inclinations through

particular empirical effects. Freedom, as the ratio essendi of the moral law, must not, we might say, be

confused with the moral law as ratio cognoscendi, i.e., as recognition of obligation under the law and

all the accompanying effects on the mind and sensibility, including the feeling of respect. All of these

effects of practical reason, considered in the previous sections, remain distinct from freedom itself, i.e.,

from their noumenal, or 'intelligible,' cause. And these effects, as part of the empirical world, are not in

conflict with phenomenal causality, even if they cannot be explained by empirical principles.

However, if we push the suggestion very far, we will have to conclude that the causality of pure

practical reason, i.e., noumenal causality as distinct from all of its empirical effects, is indeed

superfluous (a charge, as we'll see in chapter 2, that Schopenhauer is more than happy to bring). That

is, we might well ask what is left to the causality of pure practical reason, once we subtract everything

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included above under the title of ratio cognoscendi. The recognition of moral necessitation, the feeling

of respect for the moral law, the humiliation and striking down of the inclinations, in brief, the entire

complex moral psychology Kant has developed – if we locate all this as merely the empirical

manifestation of a causality that itself remains free of any tension or conflict, then what can we

possibly make of this causality? Granted, Kant himself is the first to admit that can't know anything of

it except these effects on the mind and sensibility.92 But then, what is there to the claim that the

causality of pure practical reason must itself be placed in the noumenal realm, from where it cannot

interfere with phenomena – what is there to this claim, that is, beyond the desire to coordinate the

conception of freedom developed in the second Critique with that in the first?

Similarly, on the empirical, or 'mechanical,' side of this attempted coordination, Kant never

clarifies in any detail how determination by the inclinations can be understood as 'mere mechanism.'

The inclinations, as they figure in Kant's account of motivation, seem comprehensible only as a source

of motivation and influence on the will, and therefore seem conceptually tied to rationality, at the very

least to instrumental rationality. But, as far as I know, Kant never tries to explain how instrumental, or

prudential, reasoning could be explained merely mechanically, in the strict sense indicated at KpV 5:97,

according to which our freedom would be no better than that of a turnspit. Or if motivation by the

inclinations alone means the absence even of instrumental reasoning, does Kant ever clarify how the

inclinations function and determine action 'mechanically' in the absence of reason?

Kant, it seems, never does develop any clear sense for the notion that, were the inclinations our

92 Franks notes that, while I can have a 'practical cognition that I should act as the law demands, it would be inaccurate to say that I cognize my freedom practically' (All or Nothing, p.284; op cit, note 49 above). This is true on the strict Kantian line: there is an epistemic asymmetry between the practical law and freedom, so that, since our cognition 'starts' from the former (and never in fact advances 'beyond' its effects on the mind and sensibility), it would seem, strictly speaking, that I cannot have cognition of my freedom itself. Since Kant himself suggests that this is only an epistemic asymmetry, and that 'ein unbedingtes Gesetz bloß das Selbstbewußtsein einer reinen praktischen Vernunft, diese aber ganz einerlei mit dem positiven Begriffe der Freiheit sei' (5:29), we might think it reasonable, though, to take cognition of being bound by the moral law as, in fact, cognition of freedom itself, or at least as cognition of a particular free act of self-determination. However, we see here that Kant has reason, given the way he wants to coordinate the conceptions of freedom developed in the first and second Critiques, respectively, to resist this suggestion. As follows from my current line of argument, however, I'm not convinced that it is a good, or in any case, a justifying, reason.

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only source of motivation, we would be reduced to mere mechanism. Nor does there seem to be much

left of practical reason, qua intelligible cause, if we separate from it all the effects on the mind and

sensibility. To say that freedom, as the ratio essendi of such self-determination, is nonetheless an

intelligible causality that, as such, cannot itself infringe on the phenomenal realm, seems a rather

gratuitous claim serving only to link the conception of freedom in the second Critique with that in the

first.

In order to respond to further objections that might be raised here, let's take a closer look at a

passage from the end of the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason, in which Kant makes some of his most

enlightening comments on just how the conflict between duty and inclination is tied to moral worth. 93

Kant makes particularly clear that conflict between duty and inclination goes to the very heart of moral

self-determination, and is needed for the existence in the world of any moral worth. At this point in

KpV, Kant has examined the conditions postulated by practical reason, namely, the immortality of the

soul and the existence of God, in support of the highest good. Kant asks what would happen if we not

only postulated these conditions practically, but could know them theoretically. He answers as follows:

Wofern nicht zugleich unsere ganze Natur umgeändert wäre, so würden die Neigungen, die doch allemal das erste Wort haben, zuerst ihre Befriedigung, und, mit vernünftiger Überlegung verbunden, ihre größtmögliche und dauernde Befriedigung, unter dem Namen der Glückseligkeit, verlangen; das moralische Gesetz würde nachher sprechen, um jene in ihren geziemenden Schranken zu halten, und sogar sie alle insgesamt einem höheren, auf keine Neigung Rücksicht nehmenden, Zwecke zu unterwerfen. Aber, statt des Streits, den jetzt die moralische Gesinnung mit den Neigungen zu führen hat, in welchem, nach einigen Niederlagen, doch allmählich moralische Stärke der Seele zu

93 The position I take here may seem to stand in stark contrast with the interpretation given, for instance, by Barbara Herman in her book The Practice of Moral Judgment (Harvard University Press 1993), particularly with the first chapter 'On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty.' Actually, I'm mainly sympathetic to Herman’s account. For instance, I do not want to deny that our actions can very often have moral worth in cases where they are also actions towards which we are inclined. Nor do I want to deny that we can form moral dispositions in order to bring our inclinations into line with moral judgment, and that such formation is morally desirable. I claim only that freedom and moral worth, and, perhaps most importantly, the formation of moral character, necessarily involve at least occasions of conflict with the inclinations, and of suffering that cannot finally be divorced from virtue, regardless of any subsequent reward of happiness or increased harmony between the inclinations and moral judgment. Herman too acknowledges the necessity of such conflict: 'Dutiful action from a moral motive in the face of temptation is an ordinary and natural part of moral life. Indeed, the introduction of such conflict would be a necessary part of a moral education if its occurrence were not inevitable' (p.8, note 10).

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erwerben ist, würden Gott und Ewigkeit, mit ihrer furchtbaren Majestät, uns unablässig vor Augen liegen, (denn, was wir vollkommen beweisen können, gilt in Ansehung der Gewißheit, uns so viel, als wovon wir uns durch den Augenschein versichern). Die Übertretung des Gesetzes würde freilich vermieden, das Gebotene getan werden; weil aber die Gesinnung, aus welcher Handlungen geschehen sollen, durch kein Gebot mit eingeflößt werden kann, der Stachel der Tätigkeit hier aber sogleich bei Hand, und äußerlich ist, die Vernunft also sich nicht allererst empor arbeiten darf, um Kraft zum Widerstande gegen Neigungen durch lebendige Vorstellung der Würde des Gesetzes zu sammeln, so würden die mehresten gesetzmäßigen Handlungen aus Furcht, nur wenige aus Hoffnung und gar keine aus Pflicht geschehen, ein moralischer Wert der Handlungen aber, worauf doch allein der Wert der Person und selbst der der Welt in den Augen der höchsten Weisheit, ankommt, würde gar nicht existieren. Das Verhalten der Menschen, so lange ihre Natur, wie sie jetzt ist, bliebe, würde also in einen bloßen Mechanismus verwandelt werden, wo, wie im Marionettenspiel, alles gut gestikulieren, aber in den Figuren doch kein Leben anzutreffen sein würde. [boldface added]94

Moral self-determination depends, at least for humans, on at least occasional conflict between

duty and inclination. In this passage, Kant even allows that, given theoretical knowledge of God and

immortality, the moral law would speak and that the inclinations would be subjected to a higher end

which has no regard to inclination. Yet this still would not amount to freedom. It is not sufficient for

freedom that we be merely able to evaluate independently of the inclinations, in order to check that

their ends do in fact conform to reason. In other words, the humiliation of my self-conceit and of the

presumption of my inclinations, together with the corresponding feeling of respect for the moral law,

must not merely in some sense suspend the influence of the inclinations. It is not enough to be sure of

their conformity to a higher end, by judging such conformity independently their influence, if we are

always able subsequently to satisfy them, though subordinated to and in the name of this higher end. I

must at least sometimes confront situations in which humiliation of my self-conceit and respect for the

moral law lead to actual frustration and denial of my inclinations, otherwise the moral worth of actions

would not exist at all.95

94 KpV 5:147. Note that here the reduction to 'mere mechanism' does not seem to imply any loss of instrumental reason.95 This is not to say that developing moral dispositions would undermine moral worth, should they allow an agent to

perform morally praiseworthy actions without any struggle against the inclinations. It seems to me that Kant is, however, committed to saying at least that the moral worth of such dispositions depends on the overcoming of inclination necessary to form them, or at least to ground them on the steadfastness of moral principle rather than on the contingency of natural inclination.

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Against this, it may be objected that Kant is after all talking only about what would happen if

we knew as theoretical truth what can, in fact, only be practically postulated. In that case mere self-

interest would be sufficient to guide action into accordance with duty, so that it would not even be

possible that they conflict. Perhaps then, all that Kant wants to secure here is that, given the actual

theoretical uncertainty of the postulates, conflict between duty and inclination is possible. If we could

be sure that the ends of the inclinations will in every case match the ends to which we are determined

by the moral law, then it surely would ring hollow to say that we achieve genuine freedom by

subordinating the latter to the former. But since we know that conflict is possible – or at least cannot

know that it is impossible – then it is more than an empty gesture when I free myself from the influence

of inclination even just to evaluate what duty requires. So the free moral judgment of reason, i.e.,

independent of the inclinations, is genuine freedom, regardless of whether this judgment actually

contradicts the inclinations in any particular case.

This objection is perhaps not unreasonable, nor is it flatly contradicted, so far as I know, by any

passage in KpV.96 Wherever Kant speaks of conflict between moral disposition and inclination, we can

construe this in terms of the moral disposition struggling against inclination in order to reach

independence of judgment, rather than directly to bring about any particular action or empirical effects

that would conflict with the aims of inclination. On balance, however, I think the force of the above

passage strongly suggests that our lack of theoretical knowledge about God and immortality leaves us

not only uncertain about the conformity of our inclinations with duty but more importantly without the

constraint that such certainty would impose on our inclinations. The significance of not knowing does

not consist in mere theoretical uncertainty. More important is the practical consequence that, without

96 There are also passages that lend themselves well to such an interpretation, notably at 5:93: 'Aber diese Unterscheidung des Glückseligkeitsprinzips von dem der Sittlichkeit, ist darum nicht so fort Entgegensetzung beider, und die reine praktische Vernunft will nicht, man solle die Ansprüche auf Glückseligkeit aufgeben, sondern nur, so bald von Pflicht die Rede ist, darauf gar nicht Rücksicht nehmen.' On balance, however, I don't think that the best interpretation has Kant saying only that we need to evaluate independently of the inclinations, without necessarily ever experiencing conflict of them with the moral law, for the reasons I'm laying out now.

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the 'external spur to activity' that theoretical certainty would provide, our inclinations will occasionally

conflict with morality, and it is in such cases that the moral worth of actions performed out of respect

for the moral law reveals itself, and through which 'moral strength of soul is to be gradually acquired.'

It follows that the causality of pure practical reason will occasionally come into direct conflict

with the influence of the inclinations. What then of the objections to the argument I laid out on p.46? I

noted that one possible objection is to block point B of the argument (or at least to exclude point C

from the range of B) by claiming that, given the existence of noumenal causality, a complete

phenomenal-causal explanation of agency is impossible. Even accepting this objection, it leaves us

back at square one with our central question: what sense can we make of the claim that, were the

inclinations our only source of motivation, our agency would be reduced to mere mechanism? More

important, now that we've established occasions of direct conflict between the causality of pure

practical reason and the inclinations, the objection does nothing to address the fact that these occasions

of conflict apparently amount to violations of the mutual non-infringement Kant claims between

noumenal and phenomenal causality. In other words, Kant's claim about the merely mechanical nature

of the inclinations, in the absence of pure practical reason, still seems to rest on nothing more than his

desire that the conception of freedom central to the second Critique cohere with that in the first; worse,

even if we grant Kant this claim, the result seems to be that his account of motivation and of the

practicality of pure reason violates the doctrine of mutual non-infringement at the heart of

transcendental idealism.

We might make one last attempt to save Kant's coordination of his concepts of freedom by

embracing point C, the conclusion of the argument. That is, we might allow that, although there is

noumenal causality, i.e., the will is transcendentally free as pure practical reason, it is nonetheless

possible, in principle, to give a complete phenomenal-causal account of motivation and agency. Of

course, such an account must not make any reference to noumenal causality, nor to effects of such

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causality, at least not as effects of such causality. Given the nature of Kant's attempted coordination of

the conceptions of freedom in the first and second Critique, the phenomenal-causal account of agency

would take the inclinations as the only source of motivation.

We could then allow that the tension and conflict Kant describes in his moral psychology really

do constitute, or at least belong to, the essence of freedom and moral self-determination, but that, since

such tension and conflict, including the feeling of respect and the humiliation of self-conceit, cannot be

explained by empirical principles, the account of motivation and agency given by empirical psychology

will not refer to them. We need only consider the differing accounts that would then have to be given

of, e.g., the gallows example, to see how bizarre this suggestion is.

Kant's own account of the gallows example describes the deliberation and motivation of the

agent in terms not only of inclinations, but also of duty and respect for the moral law. Kant insists that

the agent is conscious of duty, and feels respect for the law, even if ultimately he does not bring himself

to act morally. Are we to imagine that empirical psychology would, as a matter of principle or method,

not have access to such phenomena in its own analyses? Or that the possibility of empirical causal

explanations that do refer to respect for the moral law and duty as sources of motivation would be a

threat to freedom? Granted, I can raise myself to freedom over my inclinations only by exercising my

own practical rationality. But if I know another person's character well enough to accurately predict

whether or not she will so raise herself and act from duty, why should it be any threat to her freedom if

she finally does as I predict (i.e., in my role as empirical psychologist)? For the essential thing, as far as

moral self-determination is concerned, is that she determine her will independently of any inclinations,

not that the causal power to do so be placed in a temporally unconditioned noumenal realm. The claim

that independence from the inclinations must be understood precisely as such a noumenal causality is

established more or less by fiat in KpV. If we accept this coordinating claim, then it indeed seems that

the feelings of respect for the law and of the humiliation of self-conceit ought not to be incorporated

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into the kinds of explanations and causal accounts given by empirical psychology. But we have yet to

see any good reason why we should accept this claim.

Suppose the agent in Kant's gallows example manages, in the end, to act from duty. He refuses

to perjure himself, though threatened with immediate execution. It would be rather strange to say that a

complete theoretical account of the action, that is, the kind of account given by empirical psychology,

would have to describe it as action based on inclination, and not from duty – though with the caveat

that we can never know whether this 'mechanical' account is 'ultimately' (i.e., from a practical point of

view?) correct or whether the agent did raise himself to freedom from empirical determination. It's one

thing to assert that we can never know infallibly a person's motive; it's quite another to say that

empirical psychology cannot avail itself even in principle of a source of motivation other than

inclination without violating the framework of theoretical knowledge. This would be especially strange,

given how readily available this source of motivation is to philosophical observation, as Kant's own

description of the gallows example indicates.

I would like to agree with Kant that there need be no conflict between, on the one hand,

freedom understood as moral self-determination independently of the inclinations and, on the other

hand, empirical principles that characterize the laws of nature. However, this is difficult so long as we

stick to the mechanical, Newtonian conception of nature that Kant favours. For, supposing we accept

Kant's rich moral psychology, particularly his account of the inevitable occasions of conflict between

moral duty and inclination, then I think it most reasonable to suppose that empirical principles, and the

causality we find in nature – supposing (as Kant does) they govern the phenomena of inner as well as

of outer sense – can accommodate this conflict. Independence from the inclinations, that is, the

capacity to strike down their influence, is essential to the moral self-determination and freedom at the

heart of KpV; freedom from determination by phenomenal causality, by the 'mechanism of nature,' is

something of a distraction. Kant identifies the two because he wants to coordinate the conceptions of

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freedom that figure in the first and second Critiques, respectively. However, his mechanical conception

of nature makes this identification awkward and ultimately, I think, unwarranted.

1.5 Humiliation and frustration of the inclinations

In this last section of the chapter, I want to relate the discussion in the previous sections to

Kant's notion of the highest good. As we saw in 1.1, there is, according to Kant, a necessary connection

between virtue and happiness ('als Grund und Folge verknüpft'97) insofar as they are combined in the

highest good. This produces the antinomy of practical reason, since it is 'schlechterdings falsch' that

'das Bestreben nach Glückseligkeit einen Grund tugendhafter Gesinnung hervorbringe,' while it seems

equally false that 'Tugendgesinnung notwendig Glückseligkeit hervorbringe.'98 Of course the latter is

not absolutely false; that it is only conditionally false, namely in reference to the empirical world,

resolves the antinomy. Practical reason is led, in so resolving the antinomy, to postulate of the

intelligible world the conditions necessary for the highest good. In the closing passage of the Dialectic,

quoted in the previous section, Kant argues that while these postulates are 'practically certain,' it is

fortunate that they are not also certain for speculative reason, since this would undermine freedom and

virtue by making conflict impossible between duty and inclination.

Kant's insistence that we cannot and must not know, but as agents necessarily postulate, the

truth of the conditions for the highest good is a common target of criticism. As mentioned earlier,

Schopenhauer in particular ties this suspicion to the fact that the highest good brings together those two

elements, virtue and happiness, whose conflict had seemed so central to virtue itself. Schopenhauer is

entirely dismissive of the Kantian highest good. He applauds the conflict emphasized in Kant's

explanation of virtuous motivation, but goes further in claiming that pursuit of happiness, as

97 KpV 5:111.98 KpV 5:114.

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satisfaction of inclinations, is not only in conflict with virtue but is in fact the very opposite of virtue.99

Virtue consists, for Schopenhauer, in the renunciation of all inclinations and, therefore, also of the

happiness that comes from their satisfaction. But supposing we are not convinced by this claim of a

radical opposition between happiness and virtue, and supposing we think there is, after all, something

right about our moral intuition that good people deserve to meet with good fortune, wicked people not;

supposing further that we agree with Kant’s account of virtue as rising above personal inclinations in

deciding how to act – what then are we to make of the apparent tension between, on the one hand, the

necessary (for virtue itself) occasions of conflict between virtue and happiness, and, on the other, the

moral intuition that an ideal world ought to bring them into proportion, and, moreover, that we ought to

strive as far as possible to make this ideal actual? Would such an ideal world do away with all suffering

on the part of the virtuous? Or at least do away with each person’s suffering to the extent of her virtue?

On the face of it, Kant’s formulation of the highest good seems to imply precisely such an elimination

of suffering in direct proportion to virtue, in principle, right up to the complete elimination of suffering

for an ideally virtuous agent. There are, however, difficulties with such an implication.

First, recall how Kant understands happiness in KpV. So far, we have come across three

definitions, more or less explicit: first, at 5:22, Kant defines happiness as 'das Bewußtsein eines

vernünftigen Wesens von der Annehmlichkeit des Lebens, die ununterbrochen sein ganzes Dasein

begleitet'; next, at 5:73, he speaks of all the inclinations together, 'die auch wohl in ein erträgliches

System gebracht werden können, und deren Befriedigung alsdann eigene Glückseligkeit heißt'; finally,

at 5:147, referring again to the inclinations, he speaks of 'ihre Befriedigung, und, mit vernünftiger

Überlegung verbunden, ihre größtmögliche und dauernde Befriedigung, unter dem Namen der

Glückseligkeit.' From these definitions, it would seem to follow that complete happiness would be

99 E.g., WWV p.625, where Schopenhauer insists 'dass alle ächte Tugend, nachdem sie ihren höchsten Grad erreicht hat, zuletzt hinleitet zu einer völligen Entsagung, in der alles Wollen ein Ende findet: hingegen ist Glückseligkeit ein befriedigtes Wollen, beide also von Grund aus unvereinbar [...]'

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entirely free of any suffering from frustrated inclinations. (I will consider one last, slightly different,

definition from KpV in a minute.) Obviously Kant isn’t claiming anyone can in fact be so completely

happy. Nor does he think highest good reflects the actual distribution of happiness in the world. The

question, however, is whether such complete happiness is, in principle, compatible with a

corresponding degree of virtue. Since the highest good (for a possible world) is 'happiness distributed

in exact proportion to morality,' it seems to follow that the more virtuous an agent, the more closely her

happiness ought to approach completeness.

However, this combination of virtue with happiness, in the complete sense just noted, is hard to

square with passages like the one closing the Dialectic, quoted in section 1.4. Moral worth there

depends on occasions where we are called to exercise virtue by acting against our inclinations, and

therefore contrary to happiness. The exercise of virtue itself then seems to rule out perfect happiness.

The capacity and willingness to suffer some frustration of the inclinations is not merely incidental to

virtue. The 'moralische Stärke der Seele' and the 'moralische Gesinnung' are acquired precisely through

the conflict ('Streit') 'den jetzt die moralische Gesinnung mit den Neigungen zu führen hat.'100 While it

may seem intuitively true that actions through which such moral strength is acquired make one worthy

of happiness, they also seem, by their very nature, to be incompatible with happiness taken as 'das

Bewußtsein eines vernünftigen Wesens von der Annehmlichkeit des Lebens, die ununterbrochen sein

ganzes Dasein begleitet.'

There is, however, another characterization of happiness in KpV, one that does not make direct

reference to the inclinations or to agreeableness. In discussing the practical postulate of the existence of

God, a postulate necessary (at least for our human understanding) for the possibility of a distribution of

happiness in proportion to virtue, Kant gives the following definition: 'Glückseligkeit ist der Zustand

eines vernünftigen Wesens in der Welt, dem es, im Ganzen seiner Existenz, alles nach Wunsch und

100 KpV 5:147.

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Willen geht, und beruhet also auf der Übereinstimmung der Natur zu seinem ganzen Zwecke,

imgleichen zum wesentlichen Bestimmungsgrunde seines Willens.'101 The references Kant here makes

to 'the condition of a rational being' and to 'will' might be taken as an indication that this definition is

significantly different from the three considered above. Stephen Engstrom, in particular, argues this

point. As he puts it, happiness 'on the “wish and will” characterization is regarded, not merely as the

imagination's maximally agreeable ideal, but as an end of action (cf. MS 386, 387, G 415); and in being

regarded as an end, it is regarded as good, as in conformity with reason (KpV 57ff.)'102 This, Engstrom

argues, places an important condition on the happiness that Kant includes in the highest good, a

condition not present in the first two definitions considered earlier, and at best ambiguously present in

the third (from 5:147). In particular, Engstrom argues that the representation of happiness as the

'satisfaction of all one's inclinations' is

inadequate because it fails to keep in view that, since the will is practical reason, the concept's content – everything's going according to wish and will – is an object of practical reason and therefore regarded as good. Now Kant holds that one's consciousness of the moral law reveals that the virtuous activity of a good will – its wishing and willing in accordance with the moral law – is the sole unconditioned good; every other good depends for its goodness on its being the object (or possible object) of a good will (G 393-4). Consequently, everything's going according to wish and will turns out to be truly good only insofar as one's wish and will depend on the moral law as their fundamental principles [...] Hence, the conception of everything's going according to wish and will, insofar as it involves regarding this content as good, presupposes that the wishing and willing are virtuous, and it therefore depends on the conception of virtue, even though it does not include virtue as part of its content.103

I think Engstrom is right, for the reasons he gives, to say that the definition of happiness as

everything's going according to wish and will signals an important shift in the concept, as compared to

the other definitions we considered above. I'm not sure, however, that this is an indication that Kant is

101 KpV 5:124.102 p.105, Engstrom, 'Happiness and the Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant,' in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking

Happiness and Duty, ed. by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1996. The remaining citations to Engstrom in this chapter are given with page numbers from this publication.

103 Engstrom, pp.105-106.

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addressing, either explicitly or implicitly, the concern I've been pointing to in this section, namely, that

Kant seems to allow that complete happiness, in the sense of the earlier definitions, is at least in

principle compatible with virtue. The only condition now being added is that all of the agent's wishing

– that is, presumably, all of her inclinations and desires – be 'in accordance with the moral law.' The

implication is that complete happiness, in the sense of our earlier definitions, remains compatible with

virtue; it's simply that the set of inclinations, whose satisfaction constitutes such happiness, must have a

certain form. This seems to be Engstrom's view as well, when he says that 'the difference just indicated

between Kant's two characterizations of Glückseligkeit does not amount to a tension in his view.'104

I think, however, that tension does remain in Kant's conception of the highest good, regardless

of which of these two conceptions of happiness we include in the highest good. Steadfast virtuous

wishing and willing themselves must rest on the moral disposition and strength of soul that can only be

acquired through occasional conflict between this disposition and the inclinations. Granted, this still

allows for the inclinations to be brought into ever greater conformity with the moral law. My point is

merely that any conception of happiness that would entirely exclude, from the life of the agent,

suffering and frustration of the inclinations is incompatible with Kant's conception of acquiring a

virtuous disposition, since the latter depends, in part, on precisely what would then be excluded from

happiness.

A possible reply is that I'm looking for compatibility in the wrong place. Kant only postulates

this compatibility for the intelligible world of the understanding, fully recognizing that virtue does not

necessarily bring with it happiness here in the empirical world. This reply is only helpful if we can then

explain how a shift to the world of the understanding might bring about compatibility. Kant's account

of virtue is not an account that is meant to hold merely in the empirical realm. Indeed our only warrant

for positive statements about the world of the understanding is given through the experience of moral

104 Engstrom, p.105.

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self-determination, i.e., of virtue, interpreted as the effects on mind and sensibility of a freedom that

transcends the empirical world. Granted, Kant sometimes speaks, as already noted, of freedom as a

noumenal causality itself distinct from any of these effects. As also noted earlier, however, there is then

nothing left with which to characterize this underlying noumenal causality 'in-itself.' In particular, we

cannot entirely divorce the suffering of frustrated inclinations from the Kantian account of virtue

without losing hold of the notion altogether. As Engstrom himself notes, 'Kant says that all strength is

known only through the hindrances it is able to overcome, and that in the case of virtue the hindrances

lie in the inclinations (not in external things) (MS 394, 405).'105

Perhaps, finally, given the postulate of immortality, the highest good joins complete happiness

to virtue as a subsequent reward. Kant argues that, since we have to admit that happiness does not

necessarily accompany virtue in the empirical world and our finite life herein, we must postulate an

indefinite time 'to follow' (though immortality, strictly speaking, would seem not to be that of a soul

within time) in which happiness and suffering are distributed according to desert.106 This line of

reasoning does not help with the problem at hand however, i.e., with the seeming incompatibility

between virtue and perfect happiness. Even supposing that (through 'endless progress'107) a virtuous

agent becomes worthy of complete happiness and actually experiences it at some future time, this does

not amount to a reconciliation of virtue with such happiness, for her virtue itself still consists in, or at

105 Engstrom, p.125.106 In the section of KpV explicitly devoted to the postulate of immortality (5:122-3), Kant bases its necessity on the

requirement of 'endless progress' toward 'complete conformity of the moral dispositions with the moral law,' since this conformity, Kant reminds us, is the 'supreme condition of the highest good.' Actually such complete conformity is only the supreme condition of the highest good in a person, whereas the highest good of a possible world is happiness distributed in exact proportion to morality (5:110-1). Since happiness is not distributed in exact proportion in this our sensible existence, a postulate of existence beyond this sensible life is also necessary for the highest good of a possible world. While the adjustment of happiness to each person’s morality would perhaps not require infinite time (unlike the endless progress necessary for the highest good in a person), any existence beyond the sensible realm seems to imply existence outside of time, and so eternity in this sense. Again, we must not know the truth of this postulate with theoretical certainty. For then the inclination towards subsequent reward and away from punishment would pre-empt any genuinely moral ground of motivation from determining the will.

107 See previous note.

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least develops through, her suffering to act against her happiness when duty so requires. Subsequent

reward cannot erase this tie between virtue and suffering.

However, an important difference does emerge here between the happiness sacrificed in acting

from duty (when the two conflict) and the happiness of which one is thereby made worthy. Pursuing the

former contradicts duty, whereas accepting the latter does not. That is, Kant obviously intends that the

happiness deserved by each according to virtue ought to be granted in such a way that its enjoyment

doesn't violate duty. In other words, we might want to distinguish between the 'active suffering'

involved in virtuously acting contrary to one's inclinations, and the 'passive suffering' that lacks any

such connection to the agent's will. This distinction can be taken roughly as that between, on the one

hand, the suffering experienced as humiliation of the inclinations and self-conceit, thus as at the same

time respect for the authority of the moral law, and, on the other hand, suffering as mere frustration of

the inclinations for reasons unconnected with duty and respect for the law. We saw in the previous

sections that such 'active suffering' is essential to the development of the moral strength of soul and of

the moral disposition that ground the moral worth of good actions.108 The rejection of the inclinations

and the frustration of their satisfaction involved in this development are pains that the agent willingly

causes herself out of respect for the moral law.

By contrast, mere frustration of the inclinations would mean simply that they go unsatisfied for

reasons unrelated to duty, for contingent reasons imposed by 'stepmotherly nature.' Such reasons may

be 'internal,' if for instance the desires and inclinations given with my sensible nature are particularly

demanding or disharmonious. Or such reasons may be external, as when a tragedy strikes through no

fault of one's own, or when one is simply faced with the kinds of inconveniences and irritations that

108 Or at least is their only reliable source. Where Kant allows for the formation of moral dispositions, it remains the formation itself that ultimately grounds moral worth, and this formation, i.e., acquiring moral strength of the soul, is achieved through occasions of conflict with, and overcoming of, the influence of the inclinations. Actions done from an established moral disposition also, of course, possess moral worth, even if they are not done contrary to inclination. Locating the 'ground' of moral worth in the formation of disposition simply registers the fact that, for Kant, any disposition given simply through a person's sensible nature cannot as such contain moral worth.

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come with, e.g., miserable weather. Making use of this distinction between active and passive suffering,

we may take the highest good for a possible world to be a state in which the latter, i.e., the mere

frustration of a person's happiness, is always in strictly inverse proportion to her virtue. The highest

good in this sense would still satisfy the moral intuition that bad things should not just happen to good

people. Similarly, then, the highest good for a person would be the combination of virtue with

happiness, where happiness is the absence of passive suffering, but cannot entirely exclude active

suffering. For what makes good people good is not only that they evaluate the moral fitness of their

actions independently of the inclinations, but that they build the strength of their moral character and

disposition through those occasions when duty demands a willed and chosen frustration of their

inclinations.

I'm not claiming that Kant himself suggests such a distinction between active and passive

suffering. Moreover, it's not clear that the distinction really allows for a satisfactory interpretation of

the highest good. For if the exercise of virtue requires situations in which duty and inclination conflict,

then virtuous people will, by definition, have to find themselves in their share of such situations. But

finding yourself in a situation where duty conflicts with inclination is, it would seem, to have

something bad happen to you. At least, it doesn't seem as though we could draw any definite and

convincing line between finding yourself in such a situation and having something bad just happen to

you. So the highest good, even in the amended form I'm suggesting here, still would not seem to stop

bad things from occasionally happening to good people (even, in principle, to ideally virtuous people).

In any case, all I want to claim here is that active suffering most definitely cannot be excluded from the

happiness that, in accordance with the highest good, ought to be granted to the virtuous agent. Precisely

this form of suffering is needed for her to develop over her inclinations the self-control and self-

determination that make her virtuous.

We might illustrate the point by briefly returning to the gallows example. When the agent is

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threatened with immediate execution upon the satisfaction of his lustful inclination, this is a case of

mere frustration (assuming here that satisfying this lustful inclination is not in itself immoral). For it is

simply given to him in this case that he cannot satisfy a pressing inclination, unless he abandon the

most pressing inclination of all, namely the love of life. The frustration he experiences doesn't follow

from any act of his will, at least not directly. (If his present lustful inclination is the result of past acts of

will, the distinction may be blurred.) In any case, there is nothing virtuous about suffering in this way;

it results from the mere play of inclinations against each other, in response to the limitations imposed

by the situation the agent faces. Slightly different would be the case where inclinations are frustrated

not by a more powerful inclination but directly by external circumstances. For instance, parents'

happiness is affected in a tragic way if they lose a child to an early death. In this case, too, the

frustration of happiness does not result in any direct way from acts of will on the part of those who

suffer. It seems reasonable to take the latter case as a prime example of the kind of suffering that

virtuous people, most of all, do not deserve. Now it may be that mastering anger, resentment or apathy

in the wake of tragedy is virtuous, but it would be perverse to call the initial suffering, in which a

person is entirely passive, virtuous.

On the other hand, the suffering of the agent in the gallows example, if he gives honest

testimony at the cost of his life, does in a crucial respect follow from his own will. The circumstances

that force the conflict between duty and inclination do not, presumably, follow from his will, but the

denial of inclination – in this case of love of life itself – that makes acting from duty possible, is an act

of will. That is why the suffering involved is accompanied by a feeling of respect, not only for the

moral law, but for oneself as source of this law. Now this is an extreme case, and it's doubtful whether

anyone could will to be given just such an opportunity to prove his virtue. Nonetheless, it follows from

our discussion thus far that if I wish to lead a life completely devoid of suffering, both active and

passive, then I thereby wish for a life devoid of virtue and moral worth. Moreover, it is only reasonable

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to add that if I wish to lead a life where there are indeed occasions for sacrifice, but that they should all

be very minor, then I thereby wish for a life of rather trivial moral worth. This is obviously not to say

that I ought to or can will for any particular disaster to befall me; I never will the difficult

circumstances as such, for it is properly speaking only my handling of them that can have moral worth.

However, what does, at the very least, seem to be ruled out is that the ultimate object of a virtuous will

should involve a life of perfect happiness, as given in KpV definitions considered above, including the

last of these, according to which happiness is a condition in which 'everything goes according to [my]

wish and will.'

Before concluding this chapter, I would like to stress again that my approach here has been to

examine Kant's opposition to eudaemonism and utilitarianism primarily through his account of

motivation, as developed in the second Critique in particular, and then to trace the tension in his

conception of the highest good back to this account of motivation. I acknowledge that Kant does not

conceive of, nor present, his moral philosophy as merely moral psychology. However, I think his

psychology of moral motivation brings out most clearly what he rejects about eudaemonism and

utilitarianism, namely, that they fail to recognize and do justice to that higher human vocation that

announces itself through the fact of reason, i.e., through the effects wrought by recognition of the moral

law – practical cognition of freedom – in the human mind (i.e., 'Gemüt'). For, as others have argued,

Kantian moral theory, taken as a doctrine about correct moral rules – including, e.g., tests of

universalizability, concern for humanity, particular moral rules and maxims endorsed, etc. - is largely, if

not entirely, compatible with utilitarianism, or at least with some related form of consequentialism.

These arguments tend to focus on whether Kantian moral theory can best, or at least plausibly,

be reconstructed as a theory designed to promote and maximize some common good, or some shared

set of ends. These are the questions addressed by, for instance, R.M. Hare in 'Could Kant Have Been a

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Utilitarian?'109 Hare there defines utilitarianism as, 'simply, the morality which seeks the ends of all in

so far as all can seek them consistently in accordance with universal maxims.' 110 Given this definition, it

certainly seems plausible that the utilitarian concern with the form of maxims that ought to govern our

actions closely parallels the Kantian concern with the same. Moreover, both Kant and the utilitarian

would further agree that the material ends to be furthered are simply the ends individuals happen to

have, where the ends of each individual are to count equally. (Of course, both Kant and the utilitarian

can argue that certain kinds of ends are socially disruptive or otherwise unworthy of being furthered.)111

Hare's argument here is at least plausible – which is why I think it's important to look carefully

at Kant's account of motivation and of human nature as it relates to agency, in order to properly

understand his objection to eudaemonism and utilitarianism. My own approach here rests on the

understanding that Kant's account of motivation is not merely ancillary to his moral theory, where

moral theory is taken in the narrower sense noted in the paragraph before last. I think this is especially

clear in the way Kant announces the 'fact of reason'; it is precisely in those moments of tension with our

inclinations and desires that pure practical reason and respect for the moral law declare their supremacy

over the eudaemonistic principle of happiness that is admittedly a central element in our motivational

make-up. And it is by struggling with and overcoming the conflict between duty and inclination in such

situations that moral character and moral worth enter the world. Thus I think any discussion of the

relation between Kant and eudaemonism, or Kant and utilitarianism, remains incomplete so long as it

ignores this motivational tension, essential both to Kant's understanding of moral worth as such and to

its contrast with the good aimed at through the principle of happiness.

109'Could Kant Have Been a Utilitarian?' appears as the final chapter, pp.147-165, in Hare, R.M. Sorting Out Ethics. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997. Citations to Hare in the following are given with page numbers from this publication.

110Hare, p.157.111Note that similar concerns and questions animate David Cummiskey's Kantian Consequentialism, as also Allen Wood's

response to Cummiskey (and others) in the final chapter, 'Consequences,' pp.259-269 of his 2008 book, Kantian Ethics. That is, these discussions generally focus on Kantian moral theory in the narrower sense just noted, rather than on Kant's account of motivation and agency.

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I noted earlier that I'm largely sympathetic with the recent reconstructions of Kant's account of

motivation given by Reath, Engstrom, Herman and others who look to move beyond an endless conflict

between duty and inclination, arguing that duty is not so austere as to exclude pleasure in dutiful action,

nor inclination so flat as to aim only at pleasure. Against Reath's claim that Kant's account of the

inclinations does not amount to psychological hedonism, I push back only to the extent of claiming

that, beside what we might fairly characterize as Kant's more considered account, there indeed lies a

'hydraulic' or mechanical account important to Kant's coordination of his first two Critiques, as also to

his conception of heteronomy and the need to gain the upper hand over the motive force of the

inclinations. This in turn helps reinforce the significance of those occasions of conflict between duty

and inclination that are necessary to build up the moral strength of the soul, even if duty and inclination

need not by their very nature be opposed. Of more particular concern to my own project here, the focus

on these issues in Kant's account of motivation and agency is essential if we are to properly understand

the Schopenhauerean critique in the next chapter, which will in turn set up discussion of

Schopenhauer's own strategy for overcoming eudaemonism, and of Nietzsche's subsequent critique of

Schopenhauer, ending finally with Nietzsche's rejection of utilitarianism.

Conclusion

The first and last sections of this chapter deal with the combination of virtue and happiness in

Kant's conception of the highest good. As Kant presents this combination, he seems to allow that

happiness, as the complete satisfaction of one's inclinations, is at least in principle compatible with

virtue. However, his account of moral motivation, and the rich moral psychology he develops around

the feelings of respect for the law and humiliation of self-conceit, undermine this compatibility. The

compatibility between virtue and happiness, and the other issues surrounding the Kantian highest good,

do not interest me here as much as the related issues in Kant's account of motivation itself. In the next

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chapter, we'll see that the kind of criticism Schopenhauer aims at Kant's highest good has considerably

more philosophical bite when seen in light of the related issues in their respective accounts of moral

psychology and motivation. As we saw in sections 1.2 and 1.3, Kant's account of motivation focuses on

principles of choice and reasons for action, in a sense decisively opposed to any mechanical 'push-pull'

account of agency focusing on the force of desires and inclinations as determining choice. His account

of moral motivation emphasizes the authority and justification of the moral law in striking down the

presumption of self-conceit, although the notion of motive force does play a secondary role insofar as

the motivational pull of incentives based on inclination is drained as a result of the humiliation of self-

conceit.

However, Kant himself goes on to introduce a mechanical account of agency, not only as

metaphor, but in full literal force, as the account that would be valid, were the inclinations our only

source of motivation. This allows Kant to coordinate the conception of freedom central to KpV – i.e.,

that of moral self-determination and independence from the inclinations – with the conception secured

negatively in the first Critique – i.e., that of a noumenal causality, free from the temporally conditioned

phenomenal realm. Unfortunately, this attempted coordination clashes with Kant's more considered

account of motivation and moral psychology. As we'll see in the next chapter, Schopenhauer's criticism

picks at precisely this difficulty. Schopenhauer holds Kant to the assumption that, empirically

considered, we are thoroughly causally and temporally determined in all our actions. Picking up on the

Coordination Problem explained in section 1.4 (though he does not himself articulate the point this

way), Schopenhauer can then argue that Kant has no right to a causality of practical reason – nor, then,

to its effects, which constitute the heart of Kant's account of moral motivation – a causality that

Schopenhauer argues is in any case superfluous, a mere 'sceptre of wooden iron.'

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Chapter 2

Schopenhauer on Kant, and the Pure Knowing Subject

This chapter is divided into five sections. In 2.1, I locate our chapter 1 problem within the

broader context of Kant's critical project. The problem, again, is the ambiguity in Kant's understanding

of the inclinations, through which he tries to coordinate the conception of freedom central to the second

Critique with that secured (though only negatively) in the first Critique. In the following I will refer to

this problem as our chapter 1 'Coordination Problem.' In 2.2, I give a sketch of the relations between

the empirical self and reason's powers of lawgiving as laid out by Kant in the broader critical context.

In 2.3, I look at Schopenhauer's critique of the Kantian philosophical framework, and argue that this

critique is best understood in light precisely of the Coordination Problem, since Schopenhauer wants

crucially to hold Kant to the causally deterministic (or 'mechanical,' in the KpV sense) conception of

desire and inclination at the heart of the Coordination Problem. Section 2.3 thus highlights the

significance of the Coordination Problem within Kant's philosophy as a whole, while at the same time

bringing us, in 2.4, to Schopenhauer's more specific criticism of the moral content of Kant's practical

philosophy (in contrast to criticism aimed more directly at the supporting framework, or 'philosophical

foundation'). Finally, in 2.5, I develop difficulties, pointed out by Nietzsche, with Schopenhauer's

conceptions of will and desire, on which Schopenhauer's critique of Kant relies, and which

Schopenhauer uses to justify his own ethical ideal of 'renunciation.'

2.1 Overview of the Kantian critical project: where to fit the inclinations?

In the Introduction1 to KU, Kant gives a helpful overview of the critical project and of his

philosophy as a whole, noting: 'So weit Begriffe a priori ihre Anwendung haben, so weit reicht der

1 That is, the version of the Introduction originally published with KU.

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Gebrauch unseres Erkenntnisvermögens nach Prinzipien, und mit ihm die Philosophie.'2 He follows this

with a series of definitions. Concepts have as their field (Feld) all those objects to which they can be

referred (bezogen), regardless of whether or not we can have knowledge of these objects.3 That part of

this field in which knowledge is possible for us is the territory (Boden) of these concepts and of the

corresponding faculty of cognition. Finally, that part of this territory for which these concepts are

lawgiving (gesetzgebend) is the realm (Gebiet) of these concepts and of the corresponding faculties of

cognition. (It can seem a bit confusing that Kant switches from the singular to plural here, in reference

to faculties of cognition. Occasionally he uses 'Erkenntnisvermögen' in the singular to refer generally to

the higher faculties of cognition, namely reason, understanding and the power of judgment. In other

places, he uses the term in the plural to refer to these same faculties. Finally, he also sometimes uses the

term in the singular to refer specifically to the understanding, or rather to the 'gesamte Vermögen des

Gemüts' through which the understanding applies its principles to nature.4)

Our faculty of cognition as a whole ('unser gesamtes Erkenntisvermögen' in the first, inclusive

singular sense just mentioned) has two realms, that belonging to the concepts of nature and that

belonging to the concept of freedom, since through each it is lawgiving a priori.5 For this reason,

philosophy is divided into its theoretical and practical parts. Nonetheless, the territory on which its two

realms are established and its lawgiving exercised is always only the totality of the objects of all

possible experience, so long as these are taken as mere appearances 'denn ohnedas würde keine

Gesetzgebung des Verstandes in Ansehung derselben gedacht werden können.'6 The division is summed

up in Kant's statement that 'Verstand und Vernunft haben also zwei verschiedene Gesetzgebungen auf

2 KU, A/B xvi. Page numbers from A edition: Berlin and Libau, by Lagarde and Friederich, 1790; B edition: Berlin, by Lagarde, 1793.

3 KU, A/B xvi.4 KU, A lvi/B lvii.5 KU, A/B xvii.6 KU, A/B xvii.

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einem und demselben Boden der Erfahrung, ohne dass eine der anderen Eintrag tun darf.'7

Here the discussion might seem somewhat ambiguous. The territory for all philosophy, that is,

the territory containing philosophy's two realms, is the totality of the objects of all possible experience

taken as appearances, Kant says. Since 'territory' is defined as the totality of objects of which

knowledge is possible for us, this restriction to appearances makes sense. Without this restriction, we

couldn't 'so much as think' the understanding's lawgiving in respect to this territory. For as the first

Critique has shown, the understanding is lawgiving only for appearances, and only where the

understanding is lawgiving can we have knowledge. However, as Kant goes on to explain, the concept

of freedom, and through it practical reason, is lawgiving not for appearances, but for things-in-

themselves.8 Reason and the understanding must legislate to different realms in order to avoid

infringing upon one another in their acts of legislation.

Clearly, since the understanding is lawgiving for the objects of experience taken as appearances,

the realm of the understanding is coextensive with the territory of philosophy as defined above. It is

somewhat less obvious whether Kant can legitimately claim that the realm of (practical) reason is also

established on this same territory. What he seems to mean is the following. The things-in-themselves to

which (practical) reason legislates are not different entities from the things-as-appearances to which the

understanding legislates. Practical reason gives the moral law to rational beings, or rather each person,

as a rational being, gives the law to herself, while remaining, of course, the same individual who

appears as 'empirical self' in the phenomenal realm, subject as such to the laws of nature and the causal

determinism that governs the phenomenal realm.9 Thus while practical reason legislates to things-in-

themselves, these 'things,' i.e., rational beings, are individuals who also belong to the realm of

appearances, and the effects of practical reason's lawgiving are to be found within appearances, i.e.,

7 KU, A/B xviii.8 KU, A/B xviii.9 See KpV 5:114ff; also discussion in chapter 1, sections 1.3 and 1.4.

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within the territory of philosophy.

So why suggest that there is anything ambiguous in Kant's discussion? The confusion arises

only if we switch to the perspective of theoretical philosophy, i.e., of the understanding's lawgiving. As

just noted, from the point of view of Kant's practical philosophy, every rational being is both an

empirical and a noumenal self, in the sense that these are two aspects of the same individual, tied to the

theoretical and practical perspectives, respectively. The same cannot be true of inanimate objects, nor

indeed of any object of experience considered solely from the point of view of theoretical reason. The

idea that each table and chair that I can know in appearance is also a table and chair in-itself, or that to

each corresponds one particular thing-in-itself, would quickly reduce Kant's transcendental idealism to

the transcendental realism (and consequently, as Kant argues, to the empirical idealism) he clearly

rejects. So from the point of view of theoretical reason, we cannot consider things-in-themselves to be

individuated in the same way as objects-as-appearances, that is, we cannot take the objects making up

the territory of philosophy each to have an aspect as appearance and another aspect as thing-in-itself.

The thing-in-itself, within theoretical philosophical, must indeed be thought (though not cognized) as

an amorphous 'supersensible ground' of objects of experience10 or 'supersensible basis' of appearances.11

But this supersensible ground is clearly not to be thought as individuated in the same way as the objects

that appear to us; we cannot, it seems, make any sense of individuation here, since, whatever this

supersensible ground might be, it is not in-itself governed by any lawgiving capacity that we humans

possess, in particular, not by the lawgiving of either the understanding or (practical) reason.

Yet any concerns lurking in the above observations would seem to be dispelled by recalling two

points. First, the role of the thing-in-itself in the theoretical philosophy is merely 'negative.' Second, the

perspective of practical reason has priority; theoretical reason itself must ultimately find its orientation

10 KU, A/B xviii-xix.11 KpV, 5:6.

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and purpose in practical concerns.12 So we ought to take the practical perspective as overriding, and,

from this perspective, Kant's broad conception of the territory and realms of philosophy seems

perfectly coherent. The theoretical role of the thing-in-itself, as supersensible ground of appearances,

cannot interfere with this picture, precisely because it is merely negative.

But is the theoretical role of the thing-in-itself really so purely negative? The notion of a

supersensible ground of appearances does not seem so wholly negative as Kant would like to have it, at

least when addressing the relation between the lawgivings of theoretical and practical reason.13

Moreover, insofar as there is something positive (however vague) to the notion of a supersensible

ground of appearances, this theoretical role of the thing-in-itself is a very different one from that given

practically, i.e., that of a free, or 'noumenal,' causality of practical reason. While practical reason may

be lawgiving for the latter, it makes little sense to think of it as lawgiving for the former, or, at least, it

makes little sense when the appearances in question are not of rational beings. Indeed, only the

lawgiving of the understanding can intelligibly refer to a supersensible ground of appearances where,

e.g., tables and chairs are concerned. The understanding must refer to such a ground, not as that over

which it is lawgiving, but as the necessarily presupposed thing-in-itself, over the appearances of which

12 KpV, 5:3-4.13 There is much more to be said about this point than I can address here, where my primary purpose is to set up

Schopenhauer's critique of Kant in a way that brings out its (often insufficiently recognized) coherence and strengths. Kant himself insists that positing noumena, even as entirely unknown in themselves, is also to advance a certain positive conception of the borders between the unknown and the known. See in particular §57 of the Prolegomena: 'Oben (§ 33, 34) haben wir Schranken der Vernunft in Ansehung aller Erkenntnis bloßer Gedankenwesen angezeigt, jetzt, da uns die transszendentale Ideen dennoch den Fortgang bis zu ihnen notwendig machen, und uns also gleichsam bis zur Berührung des vollen Raumes (der Erfahrung) mit dem leeren, (wovon wir nichts wissen können, den Noumenis) geführt haben, können wir auch die Grenzen der reinen Vernunft bestimmen; denn in allen Grenzen ist auch etwas Positives [...] Die im angeführten §§ angezeigte Schranken sind noch nicht genug, nachdem wir gefunden haben, daß noch über dieselbe etwas (ob wir es gleich, was es an sich selbst sei, niemals erkennen werden,) hinausliege.' Thus Kant does in fact allow even something of a positive theoretical role for noumena in determining the borders of our theoretical knowledge; the noumenon is therefore more than a mere 'limit' concept that remains entirely negative. Though I can't fully develop and argue the point here, I don't think this really touches Schopenhauer's concern, discussed below, that the notion of noumenon as supersensible ground of appearances implies some kind of positive role in theoretical cognition for noumena themselves (i.e., not merely as determining borders, but in terms of the 'giving' of empirical intuition itself), and that this role cannot simply be swept aside or ignored as merely negative, as soon as we introduce the positive practical role of noumena as rational self-determination. Naturally, the force of Schopenhauer's criticism here depends in large part on the broader context of his critique, in which many elements of Kant's transcendental idealism are in question. This should become clear in the following.

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in space and time it is lawgiving. Even if we can know nothing of how such a basis is taken up into

empirical intuition and thus into the lawgiving of the understanding, this reference to something

beyond both the spontaneity of thought and the mere forms of intuition is necessary, according to Kant,

for the lawgiving of the understanding. The understanding would not be lawgiving if it remained

merely empty thought, i.e., if there were no manifold of empirical intuition given to it, and this

givenness requires thinking a thing-in-itself underlying objects-as-appearances. Yet the 'giving' of this

underlying substrate cannot be so easily swept aside, as merely negative, by the 'positive' reality with

which practical reason fills the 'intelligible realm' of the in-itself.

In other words, I think there is at least some ground to question Kant's tidy division of

philosophy into two realms, sharing the same territory of objects-as-appearances, yet without any

mutual interference. Granting that practical reason alone is lawgiving for (rational beings as) things-in-

themselves, the lawgiving of the understanding nonetheless refers to (some)thing-in-itself, and

whatever this thing-in-itself may be, the role it plays in theoretical cognition, as some kind of

supersensible substrate, suggests that it is quite different from the thing-in-itself of practical philosophy,

i.e., from the rational being of a noumenal self. This problem comes to the fore when, as we saw in

chapter 1, Kant uses the inclinations to coordinate his conceptions of freedom from the first and second

Critique, respectively. For the relation of practical reason to the inclinations is an essential element in

the lawgiving of practical reason; at the same time, Kant seemingly wants to place the inclinations in

the phenomenal realm so as to identify freedom from determination by the inclinations with freedom

from determination by phenomenal causality. Yet insofar as the inclinations belong to the phenomenal

realm under the lawgiving of the understanding, this lawgiving necessarily refers to a supersensible

basis underlying the phenomenal character of the inclinations. Since the lawgiving of practical reason

governs the realm of noumena, of the 'in-itself,' and since the inclinations are the means by which Kant

coordinates the conceptions of freedom developed in the theoretical and practical philosophy,

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respectively,14 we might well expect some discussion of the relation between the lawgiving of practical

reason and the supersensible basis of the inclinations (qua appearances in the phenomenal realm,

governed by the understanding's lawgiving). Granted, a discussion of these issues seems somewhat

peripheral to Kant's primary concerns, but they arise from the coordinating role he chooses to give the

inclinations in KpV, and from the ambiguity and confusion that result thereby. As we'll see below,

Schopenhauer targets precisely this source of ambiguity.

I want to take away three points from the discussion in this section. First, there seem to be two

disparate roles for the Kantian thing-in-itself, a theoretical role and a practical one. The first might be

rather ambiguous and uncertain, but it is not so easily pictured as merely an empty place15 for practical

philosophy to fill with its own positive concepts. Second, this first point raises questions as to whether

there might not be some interference, after all, between the lawgivings of (practical) reason and the

understanding, given that their respective realms are perhaps not so strictly contained as Kant claims.

Finally, bringing these two points together, we can see that any criticism, as also any attempted

resolution, of the difficulties relating to the disparate roles of the Kantian thing-in-itself, ought to

address, and try sorting out, the relation between the lawgivings of (practical) reason and of the

understanding, respectively. Since the lawgiving of (practical) reason singles out rational beings from

among the totality of objects-as-appearances, and thus human beings in particular (as the only rational

beings we know of), we can also put the point by saying that what needs sorting out are the various

relations between the noumenal self (practical reason as lawgiver), the transcendental unity of

apperception or 'transcendental self' (ultimate source of the understanding's lawgiving) and the

empirical self who is responsive to both forms of lawgiving, while at the same time subject to that of

the understanding.

14 Note that since the coordination is achieved in such a way that freedom from the lawgiving of the understanding is identified with freedom under the lawgiving of practical reason, the inclinations are thus also the means of coordinating the lawgivings of the understanding and practical reason, respectively.

15 KpV, 5:49; see discussion in chapter 1, section 1.4. See also note 13 above.

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In the following section, I address the question of these relations, to the limited extent necessary

to set up Schopenhauer's critique of Kant, to which I then turn in section 2.3. We'll see that, while his

critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy targets the thing-in-itself in what I've called its 'theoretical

role,' both this critique and his critique of Kant's moral philosophy gain in depth and bite if we bring

them together, within the context of the three points noted in the last paragraph. In particular, there is a

sense in which, in spite of his scathing criticism of the Kantian thing-in-itself, Schopenhauer maintains

within his own philosophy a theoretical role for the thing-in-itself not so very different from the

Kantian. On the practical side, however, Schopenhauer unambiguously rejects any causality of practical

reason, i.e., he rejects Kant's practical role for the thing-in-itself. This, in turn, solves our Coordination

Problem of chapter 1, by securing a consistently deterministic phenomenal-causal conception of the

inclinations. We can then evaluate how drastic a revision of Kant's philosophy this solution of the

Coordination Problem entails.

2.2 Transcendental, noumenal, empirical: the three-fold Kantian self

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant looks to reconcile, up to a point, the competing claims of

rationalism and empiricism. However, he does so, as Lewis White Beck points out,16 by waging battle

against both on a common front, namely, against the claim that there is a single ultimate source, or

foundation, of our knowledge. Kant insists not only on the necessity of both reason and experience for

knowledge, but on a clear separation, or heterogeneity, of these two sources of cognition.

Yet there is undoubtedly a rationalist feel to Kant's philosophy, at least from our 21st Century

perspective. After all, the guiding purpose of Kant's critical project is to uncover and determine the

legitimate applications, and the limits, of reason's a priori principles, that is, the legitimate contribution

of our rational spontaneity to experience. It is fundamental to Kant's position that this contribution, in

16 See 'Kant's Strategy' in Lewis White Beck, Essays on Kant and Hume, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1978, pp.3-19.

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particular the acts of synthesis through which the understanding presents objects of experience in

accordance with its categories,17 cannot be explained from experience. These synthesizing acts of the

understanding cannot be naturalized as events within the phenomenal realm, since they are the very

means by which this realm is structured in the first place.

In other words, these acts of synthesis are, for Kant, the spontaneous activity of the

understanding precisely because they are not conditioned as empirical-causal events. They have their

ultimate source rather in the 'I think' that must be able to accompany all my representations, what Kant

also variously calls the 'original synthetic unity of apperception' and 'the transcendental unity of self-

consciousness.'18 I don't want to enter into a detailed discussion of this 'transcendental I' (my shorthand

term, not Kant's) here. For our purposes, we need only note that this transcendental unity of self-

consciousness must be understood as distinct from any empirical self-consciousness. The synthetic

unity of apperception is the unity of thought necessary for any use of concepts whatsoever; for

concepts, most notably the categories, are rules for the presentation of objects given in intuition, so that

the presentation of objects is an activity of ordering and bringing unity into the manifold of intuition.

What is distinctively Kantian about this point is the combination of, on the one hand, the notion of

concepts as rules for the presentation of objects and the accompanying emphasis on the spontaneous

activity of the understanding, with, on the other hand, the claim that the understanding's acts of

synthesis must take place on a manifold 'given' to it from outside its own activity, i.e., through intuition,

if they are to yield any knowledge of actual objects.

The central challenge facing the Kantian project is, then, to explain how a manifold 'given' to

the understanding can be taken up into its spontaneous activity in order to produce cognition of objects

in accordance with the understanding's categories (and other concepts). The schematism given in Kant's

17 This is the contribution of theoretical reason to experience, my primary focus in this section, though I will also note the analogy with practical reason and the corresponding sections of chapter 1 towards the end of this section.

18 See, especially, §16 'Von der ursprünglich-synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption,' KrV B131-135.

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transcendental doctrine of the imagination constitutes, in large part, his response to this challenge.

Again, this is not the place to discuss the transcendental imagination or the schemata in any great

detail. Let us for the moment simply accept, in broad terms, Kant's account of the schematism: the

transcendental imagination synthesizes the manifold of pure intuition, i.e., the forms of space and time,

in accordance with the understanding's rules for the presentation of objects in general, i.e., in

accordance with the categories. The resulting spatio-temporal 'schemata' yield the principles in

accordance with which we necessarily cognize objects in space and time, and thus constitute the link

between our receptivity (for empirical intuition given in experience) and the spontaneity of the

understanding.19

Even if we accept Kant's account of the schematism, the 'giving' of a manifold to the

transcendental imagination (and thereby to the understanding) remains essentially, and deliberately,

unexplained. For although empirical intuition depends on the causal affection of our sense organs by

the objects of experience, such causal affection cannot as such give us the manifold to be synthesized

by the understanding. That is, the manifold synthesized by the understanding (through the imagination)

cannot consist of causal affection or sensory impingements. By contrast, we'll see in the next section

that such causal affection does, in an important sense, exhaust the giving of objects to the

understanding, for Schopenhauer.

The causal story alone won't do for Kant. He cannot, as Schopenhauer does, identify the

understanding's acts of synthesis with 'brain functions' in the phenomenal realm without conflating the

transcendental and empirical orders he wants to keep distinct. The manifold of intuition in which the

understanding effects its acts of synthesis cannot be merely a collection of causal sensory

impingements, for this would drag the activity of the understanding itself into the empirical causal

order. And yet, without the causal sensory impingements, no manifold of intuition would be given; how

19 See 'Die Analytik der Grundsätze' in KrV, in particular, 'Von dem Schematismus der reinen Verstandesbegriffe,' A137-147/B176-187.

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causal sensory impingements result in a manifold given to the understanding is not explained. There

thus remains a 'gap' in the Kantian account, as to how causal affection of our sense organs results in a

manifold of intuition given to our understanding.

Of course, this is an intentional gap. If there were no gap between the causal impingements of

objects of experience on our sense organs and the manifold of intuition given to the understanding, then

there would be no need to refer to a thing-in-itself underlying appearances. (Speaking in a more

Kantian vein, there simply is no 'gap': causal affection of our sense organs does not explain the giving

of a manifold of intuition to the understanding, but this giving is a fact for which we should not seek

any theoretical explanation; only the vain search for one makes it look like there is a gap in need of

explanation. Since I'm setting up the Schopenhauerean critique here, I will stick to the more

Schopenhauerean way of putting things.) As we will see in the following section, Schopenhauer rejects

this gap, and consequently also rejects the role that Kant allows for the thing-in-itself in theoretical

cognition. This role is of course rather vague (or 'negative'), but that's hardly surprising. The thing-in-

itself somehow underlies the giving of a manifold of intuition to the understanding, but we cannot

know anything of how it does this. The following section will look in detail at Schopenhauer's attack on

this point.

Let me call the distinction that Kant here insists on, and that Schopenhauer denies, that between

the rational and causal orders. Fundamental to Kant's philosophy is the irreducibility of rational

spontaneity to empirical phenomena, so long as we want to allow and account for the normativity that,

on Kant's view, characterizes reason's spontaneous activity. Thus far we have looked at theoretical

cognition, where the distinction between rational and causal orders is expressed in, for instance, the

Kantian distinction between the transcendental unity of self-consciousness and the fragmentary

empirical ego. Within Kant's practical philosophy there is an equally clear distinction between the

noumenal self, as free rational agent, and the empirical self, as temporally and causally determined, as

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we saw in chapter 1.

Now the point is not to hypostasize these different 'selves', so that we are left asking how three

different entities – one transcendental, one noumenal and one empirical – can be brought together

within a greater or complete self. Clearly any minimally sympathetic reading of Kant has to

acknowledge that the higher faculties are not intended as ontologically distinct entities or beings. They

are powers or capacities that human beings exercise. When I act as a rational being, exercising practical

reason, or cognize the world around me through the understanding, I am not a different individual from

the empirical ego I apprehend in inner sense, nor again from my physical appearance to others (and

myself) in outer, as well as inner, sense, i.e., in space and time.

Nonetheless, Kant's careful separation of the rational and causal orders raises questions about

the relation of the empirical self to these higher faculties. The empirical self, like all empirical objects,

is subject to the lawgiving of the understanding. But since the empirical self is the same individual who

exercises the higher faculties of practical reason and the understanding, the empirical self must also be

responsive to this exercise of the faculties. That is, Kant's separation of orders requires that he explain

also their coordination. On the theoretical (and aesthetic) side, he does this largely through an account

of 'common sense' (Gemeinsinn, sensus communis), and on the practical side, through 'common human

reason,' closely aligned, if not identical, with (receptivity to) the feeling of respect for the law.

We've already looked in detail at the second of these in chapter 1, sections 1.3 and 1.4. In

particular, we saw that Kant's strategy in the second Critique is to first determine the practical law for a

will assumed to be free, then to argue that human beings do take an immediate interest in this practical

law, i.e., the moral law, and can therefore freely determine their choice directly by the moral law. This

immediate interest in the law, i.e., the recognition of the authority of the law over one's action, as those

of a rational agent, is experienced as a feeling of respect for the law, which can therefore only be

explained 'practically,' as an effect of pure practical reason, even though our sensible constitution

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remains the condition of its experience. (See section 1.3 in chapter 1.) The recognition of the moral

law's authority over us, and the feeling of respect we experience thereby, constitute the responsiveness

of human nature to the lawgiving of our practical reason. In chapter 1, I noted there is a certain

ambiguity here, since Kant sometimes seems to attribute the feeling of respect to every finite rational

creature as such, claiming, e.g., 'daß man a priori doch noch so viel einsehen kann; ein solches Gefühl

sei unzertrennlich mit der Vorstellung des moralischen Gesetzes in jedem endlichen vernünftigen

Wesen verbunden.'20

On the other hand, we saw that in other places – KU §12 in particular – Kant retracts the claim

to have derived the feeling of respect from the idea of morality ('Sittlichkeit') as cause, replacing it with

the claim to have derived only the determination of will that, given our sensible human constitution, is

necessarily accompanied by the feeling of respect. The ambiguity here reflects the fact that the feeling

of respect 'straddles' our empirical and rational, or 'intelligible,' natures, insofar as it constitutes the

responsiveness of the former to the latter. Kant seems to confirm the KU position in a passage from the

Religion:

es folgt daraus, daß ein Wesen Vernunft hat, gar nicht, daß dies ein Vermögen enthalte, die Willkür unbedingt durch die bloße Vorstellung der Qualification ihrer Maximen zur allgemeinen Gesetzgebung zu bestimmen und also für sich selbst praktisch zu sein: wenigstens so viel wir einsehen können. Das allervernünftigste Weltwesen könnte doch immer gewisser Triebfedern, die ihm von Objecten der Neignung herkommen, bedürfen, um seine Willkür zu bestimmen; hiezu aber die vernünftigste Überlegung, sowohl was die größte Summe der Triebfedern, als auch die Mittel, den dadurch bestimmten Zweck zu erreichen, betrifft, anwenden: ohne auch nur die Möglichkeit von so etwas, als das moralische, schlechthin gebietende Gesetz ist, welches sich als selbst und zwar höchste Triebfeder ankündigt, zu ahnen.21

In chapter 1, section 1.4, the question arose as to whether, for Kant, it is possible that a rational

being should possess merely instrumental practical reason (i.e., reason that would determine the will

always only to (the means for reaching) ends given by inclination) without also possessing the full-

20 KpV 5:80.21 RV 6:26, note.

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blown freedom of pure practical reason, i.e., reason capable of determining the will autonomously,

independently of any inclination. I did not want to address the question in any detail in Chapter 1,

because I don't think my argument there depends on the answer. We can now see that, although there is

a sense in which we might say it's not possible for a rational being to possess only instrumental

deliberative reason, Kant's more considered answer seems to allow that it is, in fact, possible. The sense

in which it's not possible is the following. It follows, for Kant, from the very nature of our will, i.e.,

from the capacity to determine our actions according to the conception of laws, that we ought to

determine our will in accordance with the moral law. The practical necessity of such a will-

determination is derived, as he claims at KU §12, from the idea of morality as cause. But the feeling of

respect, he also acknowledges there, cannot be so derived. Since this feeling is essential to our ability to

respond to the moral law appropriately, i.e., to in fact determine our wills in accordance with the moral

law and to act morally, it would seem that, for Kant, it is possible, or at least conceivable, for rational

beings to possess instrumental practical reason without also possessing the full-blown freedom of pure

practical reason. Thus the feeling of respect may be said to constitute a 'subjective side' of the Kantian

fact of reason, belonging at least to human nature, but not necessarily to all rational beings.

I will simply note here that Kant gives a role in theoretical judgment, somewhat analogous to

that of common human reason and the feeling of respect in practical judgment, to 'sensus communis'

and the feeling of pleasure grounded in it. Our empirical nature must be responsive not only to the

commands of practical reason, but also to the principles of theoretical cognition. At KU §21, Kant

argues that 'common sense' is necessary for us to communicate, and therefore also to recognize the

universality of, judgments of theoretical cognition. By common sense, Kant here means, very briefly, a

feeling of pleasure common to all human beings in response to the harmony between the understanding

and the imagination when an object of intuition is accurately subsumed under a concept. The feeling of

pleasure is, like all feelings, given in inner sense, and therefore has as its condition our sensible

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constitution, as does the feeling of respect. At the same time, it constitutes a responsiveness to

universally valid principles of theoretical reason, i.e., of the understanding, and, to this extent, plays a

similar role to that of the feeling of respect in mediating between our rational faculties and our

empirical nature.

I note these issues here because Schopenhauer, as we will now see, rejects the Kantian

distinction of rational and causal orders. On the one hand, this frees him from having to give an account

of their coordination, a task that can be rather complicated, as the very brief outline just given of Kant's

account would suggest. On the other hand, this would seem to make him a rather unhelpful critic of

Kant. The distinction is so fundamental to Kant's project that any critique that rejects it from the start

seems unlikely to engage that project in any interesting sense. I think that Schopenhauer's critique of

Kant's theoretical philosophy, taken in isolation, may indeed suffer from this drawback. I will argue,

however, that Schopenhauer draws on elements internal to Kant's own philosophy to undermine the

distinction of rational and causal orders. This is especially true in Schopenhauer's resolution of the

Coordination Problem, a problem which is at the heart of Schopenhauer's critique of Kant, though not

always explicitly. In the following two sections, 2.3 and 2.4, I argue that, when seen in light of the

Coordination Problem, Schopenhauer's critique, not only of Kant's moral philosophy, but also of the

theoretical, gains considerably in depth and force.

2.3 Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy and the noumenal self

Schopenhauer attacks Kant's philosophy on two main grounds: first, for violating the standpoint

of Kant's own idealism in the way Kant introduces the thing-in-itself, and second, for making a 'sham

contract' of morality by violating Kant's own stated opposition to eudaemonism. Criticism of Kant on

these points is implicit throughout Schopenhauer's philosophy, but he also devotes extended and

detailed discussions specifically to these points. The first point, focusing on Kant's theoretical

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philosophy and thus on the first Critique in particular, is tackled in greatest detail in an appendix to the

first volume of Schopenhauer's WWV, titled simply 'Critique of the Kantian Philosophy.' He addresses

Kant's philosophy as a whole in this appendix, but the bulk of the 100 or so pages is devoted to issues

in Kant's theoretical philosophy. As the appendix notes (in the later editions of WWV), Schopenhauer

devotes much of his essay, On the Basis of Morality, to a critique of Kant's moral philosophy. This

essay is Schopenhauer's definitive statement on the Kantian practical philosophy, though he inevitably

addresses key elements of this critique in WWV, as he builds to that work's grand conclusion that the

will's self-negation is the highest ethical ideal.

In order to keep the structure of Schopenhauer's critique clear in what follows, it will help to fix

more precisely some terminology. In particular, we might distinguish Schopenhauer's 'theoretical

critique' of Kant's philosophy from Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy. For the

theoretical critique also targets key elements of Kant's practical philosophy, or at least of the framework

of Kant's practical philosophy, and does so on different grounds from those on which Schopenhauer

targets the moral content of Kant's practical philosophy. For instance, Schopenhauer rejects Kant's

notion of a noumenal self on grounds closely tied to his criticism of Kant's deduction of the categories

and introduction of the thing-in-itself, and thus as part of his theoretical critique of Kant.

When it comes to the moral content of Kant's philosophy, e.g. to Kant's practical postulates, and

to the highest good in particular, Schopenhauer argues that these violate Kant's own stated opposition

to eudaemonism and sneak in a secret path to individual happiness as the highest goal in Kant's

practical philosophy. The moral grounds of this criticism are relatively independent of the theoretical

grounds on which Schopenhauer criticizes both Kant's theoretical philosophy and certain key elements

of the practical framework. Of course, these grounds aren't completely independent. Schopenhauer

after all thinks that his philosophical framework better justifies the opposition to eudaemonism to

which both he and Kant are committed. If he's right, this would then offer additional support to his

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theoretical critique of the Kantian framework.

In any case, despite the obvious interconnection of its elements, Schopenhauer's critique of Kant

can helpfully be articulated in three distinct moments: the critique of both 1. Kant's theoretical

philosophy, and 2. the framework of Kant's practical philosophy, followed, finally, by 3. the critique of

the moral content of Kant's practical philosophy. I will now take up each of these in turn: in this section

(2.3), points 1 and 2, and in the next section (2.4), point 3.

2.3.1 Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy

Reading Schopenhauer on the Critique of Pure Reason, we might suspect that on several points

Schopenhauer fundamentally misunderstands Kant's transcendental idealism. As already noted, he

tends to ignore the vital Kantian distinction between rational and causal orders, that is, – since we are

concerned with the theoretical philosophy here – between the transcendental 'order' of the

understanding's acts of synthesis and the empirical realm that is structured through these acts.

Moreover, Schopenhauer's attack on the Kantian conception of the thing-in-itself as the underlying

ground of appearances may seem awkward in light of his own conception of the thing-in-itself (which

he identifies with will) as the inner reality of appearances. A perhaps charitable suggestion is that

Schopenhauer focuses in this way on the Kantian thing-in-itself in order to distinguish his own

conception of it, which might otherwise look all-too similar to Kant's. In any case, I will argue in this

subsection that Schopenhauer's critique of the Kantian object (including the thing-in-itself) is best

understood as an attack, somewhat oblique, on the Kantian subject.

This interpretation still leaves Schopenhauer's critique looking rather external to the Kantian

concerns it targets. In the following subsection, I will argue that the implications of this critique for the

framework of Kant's practical philosophy have considerably more internal traction.

The 'source of error and of the confusion enveloping him': Kant's introduction of the thing-in-itself

Schopenhauer does not want to expunge the thing-in-itself from his philosophical system. He

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mocks Fichte, among others, for thinking that the 'riddle' of Kant's philosophy is solved by excising the

thing-in-itself.22 Indeed the 'great advance' beyond Kant on which Schopenhauer prides himself consists

in identifying the thing-in-itself with will, and in raising to clear philosophical insight our acquaintance

with this inner reality of the world. Schopenhauer objects rather to the way in which Kant introduces

the thing-in-itself into his system: 'Mit der in der ersten Auflage der “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” so

deutlich ausgesprochen, entschieden idealistischen Grundansicht steht jedoch die Art, wie Kant das

Ding an sich einführt, in unleugbarem Widerspruch [...]'23

Schopenhauer explains the mistake as follows:

Kant gründet die Voraussetzung des Dinges an sich, wiewohl unter mancherlei Wendungen verdeckt, auf einen Schluss nach dem Kausalitätsgesetz, dass nämlich die empirische Anschauung, richtiger die Empfindung in unsren Sinnesorganen, von der sie ausgeht, eine äußere Ursache haben müsse. Nun ist aber, nach seiner eigenen und richtigen Entdeckung, das Gesetz der Kausalität uns a priori bekannt, folglich eine Funktion unseres Intellekts, also subjektiven Ursprungs; ferner ist die Sinnesempfindung selbst, auf welche wir hier das Kausalitätsgesetz anwenden, unleugbar subjektiv; und endlich sogar der Raum, in welchen wir mittelst dieser Anwendung die Ursache der Empfindung als Objekt versetzen, ist eine a priori gegebene, folglich subjektive Form unseres Intellekts.24

Thus the 'ganze empirische Anschauung' remains 'durchweg auf subjektivem Grund und Boden,

als ein bloßer Vorgang in uns, und nichts von ihr gänzlich Verschiedenes, von ihr Unabhängiges, lässt

sich als Ding an sich hineinbringen, oder als nothwendige Voraussetzung darthun.'25

Striking to a Kantian reader is the causal sense that Schopenhauer here gives to intuition.

Indeed, in various passages, Schopenhauer describes, for instance, as 'Gehirnfunktionen' what for Kant

are transcendental acts of synthesis.26 In other words, from a Kantian point of view, Schopenhauer

22 WWV, p.147: 'Es wäre demnach [...] dann wirklich die ganze Welt aus dem Subjekt abgeleitet und in der That das geleistet, was Fichte durch seine Windbeuteleien zu leisten scheinen wollte. - Nun aber geht es nicht so an: Phantasien, Sophistikationen, Luftschlösser hat man in jeder Art zu Stande gebracht, keine Wissenschaft.'

23 WWV, p.516.24 WWV, p.516. As with all other quotations given in this dissertation, the emphasis is in the original, unless stated

otherwise.25 WWV, p.516.26 See e.g. p.495: 'Also hatte Locke vom Dinge an sich den Antheil, welchen die Sinnesorgane an der Erscheinung

derselben haben, abgezogen; Kant aber zog nun noch den Antheil der Gehirnfunktionen (wiewohl nicht unter diesen Namen) ab [...]' The parenthesis is worth noting. See also, e.g., p.499: 'Aus dieser ergiebt sich dann ferner, dass die

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seems to confuse the transcendental with the empirical. Kant certainly acknowledges that, given our

subjective constitution, our receptivity to empirical intuition depends on our sense organs and the

causal affection they experience from objects in the world (as also, surely, on our brains and physiology

as a whole). However, as noted in the previous section, Kant distinguishes between the rational and the

causal, or the transcendental and the empirical, in such a way that the manifold of intuition in which the

understanding effects its syntheses (through the schemata of the imagination) cannot simply consist of

causal sensory impingements and physiological brain functions.

From Schopenhauer's perspective, Kant is equivocating on the sense of 'given'. Schopenhauer

points out that if any objects are given to us, these must be the empirical objects we cognize, and these

affect our sense organs causally, in the unmysterious sense of empirical causality. For Schopenhauer, it

is precisely through these objects and this causal affection, together with the subsequent causal chain

through to the necessary brain functions, that perceptions are given to us. Kant, in contrast, insists we

need to think a supersensible basis underlying the 'giving' of objects of experience. This is because,

again, the manifold of intuition cannot, for Kant, be given to the understanding in a merely empirical

causal sense. Granted, Kant doesn't explain this non-causal sense of 'giving,' beyond arguing why we

cannot know how the supersensible underlies the objects of experience. Schopenhauer hammers away

with his claim that Kant simply 'dismisses' the empirical content of experience with the unexplained

phrase 'it is given.' But since the distinction between the transcendental and the empirical is so

fundamental to Kant's transcendental idealism, it seems rather unenlightening for Schopenhauer to

reject it outright, or fail to see it altogether.

Moreover, we might press Schopenhauer on his own 'discovery' of the thing-in-itself as will. If

objektive Welt, wie wir sie erkennen, nicht, dem Wesen des Dinges an sich selbst angehört, sondern bloße Erscheinungen desselben ist, bedingt durch eben jene Formen, die a priori in menschlichen Intellekt (d.h. Gehirn) liegen [...]' Interestingly, on pp.535-6 Schopenhauer says of Kant's synthetic unity of apperception: 'Es ist was ich das Subjekt des Erkennens, das Korrelat aller Vorstellungen nenne, und ist zugleich Das, was ich, im Kapitel 22 des zweiten Bandes, als den Brennpunkt, in welchen die Strahlen der Gehirnthätigkeit konvergiren, ausführlich beschrieben und erörtet habe.'

87

Schopenhauer himself posits an underlying reality, of which the empirical world is merely the

representation, why is he so quick to insist that Kant's underlying supersensible reality is meant as

underlying cause, in a way that so obviously violates Kant's own idealist standpoint? Schopenhauer

even goes out of his way to note that Kant 'hides' the 'Kausalnexus unter den Namen “Grund der

Erscheinung.”' Why be so suspicious that Kant must be hiding a causal nexus (in the sense, here

illegitimate, of an empirical cause), when Schopenhauer himself allows that an underlying reality can

underlie in a non-causal sense?

The answer is that Schopenhauer's issue is not fundamentally with Kant's conception of the

object that confronts the perceiving subject, but rather with Kant's conception of the perceiving subject

itself. Perhaps Schopenhauer himself is not entirely clear on this, because the focus on the Kantian

object makes his criticism of Kant somewhat confusing in places. The above criticism of Kant's 'falsche

Ableitung des Dinges an sich'27 through a 'Kausalnexus' is a case in point. Closely related to this is

Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant for a 'three-fold distinction' of the object of cognition. I explain the

issue briefly here to further support the claim that these points of criticism are indeed best understood

as indirectly undermining the Kantian subject.

Schopenhauer attacks Kant for distinguishing 'dreierlei: 1) die Vorstellung; 2) den Gegenstand

der Vorstellung; 3) das Ding an sich.'28 For Kant, the second of the these, which he also calls the 'object

= x'29 and the 'object in general,'30 is simply the unity an object of experience necessarily has as a

reflection of the unity of the acts of synthesis (grounded ultimately in the synthetic unity of

apperception31) that make its representation as object possible. Thus, for instance, when I perceive one

and the same object, say the copy of KrV before me, having several different properties, say shape,

27 WWV, p.529.28 WWV, p.526.29 KrV A105.30 KrV A106.31 Kant also uses the term 'transcendental unity of apperception' at KrV A108.

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hardness, a likeness of Kant on the cover, this representation is possible only because I synthesize the

manifold of intuition in accordance with (among other things) the category of substance, through which

the various properties mentioned are held together as properties of one and the same object. Similarly

with the other categories. Each one depends on, or rather simply is, the unity of a rule (of the

understanding) for the synthesis (effected by the imagination) of the sensible manifold. This unity is

grounded, for each act of synthesis, in the original synthetic unity of apperception, and cannot be

simply given in representation. The object = x is the reflection of that unity of apperception. (Here we

have to say 'reflection' and not 'the same thing' as, for otherwise the understanding would be able to

produce objects through its acts of synthesis, which it cannot. Again, the givenness of empirical

intuition is a brute fact within Kant's theoretical philosophy; if the unity of our understanding's acts of

synthesis is not to be empty, perceptions must be given to it. Thus the unity of the object = x is not

merely the unity of apperception, but rather this unity as reproduced or reflected in the 'unexplained'

givenness of empirical intuition.)

Schopenhauer claims: 'Das unberechtigte Einschieben jenes zwitters, Gegenstand der

Vorstellung, ist die Quelle der Irrthümer Kants.' Yet it seems that there is a strikingly analogous element

in Schopenhauer's own philosophy, namely materiality: 'Denn die Materie, als beharrend, giebt dem

Dinge die Beharrlichkeit durch alle Zeit [...] Alles Übrige am Dinge sind entweder Bestimmungen des

Raumes, oder der Zeit, oder seine empirischen Eigenschaften, die alle zurücklaufen auf seine

Wirksamkeit, also nähere Bestimmungen der Kausalität sind.'32 Materiality is that which is permanent

through all time, underlying the representation of empirical objects. Schopenhauer argues that

materiality 'ist es allein, die das reale Ding vom Phantasiebild, welches denn doch nur Vorstellung ist,

unterscheidet.'33 Moreover, the permanence of materiality is given a priori as the unity brought to the

representations of an object through the understanding's application of the law of causality. Materiality

32 WWV, p.528.33 WWV, p.528.

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is never perceived as such, but is only the necessarily thought material substratum whose causal

properties are perceived in the phenomenal chain of causes and effects. In the passage I have just been

quoting, Schopenhauer goes out of his way to stress the similarities with Kant, and here materiality is

indeed analogous in many respects to that which Kant calls the object = x. This would seem to

undermine Schopenhauer's attacks on the latter, 'der eigentliche Gegenstand der Kategorien,' as 'nicht

die anschauliche Vorstellung, [...] auch nicht der abstrakte Begriff, sondern von beiden verschieden,

und doch Beides zugleich, und ein völliges Unding.'34 Or if it doesn't undermine these attacks, it makes

us wonder whether they don't apply equally to Schopenhauer's conception of materiality.

After clarifying materiality as the unity, or permanence, brought to our representations through

the application of the causal law, Schopenhauer goes on to declare 'die übrigen elf Kategorien nur

blinde Fenster,'35 which directs us to the real ground of his criticism. While the attacks on Kant's

discussion of the thing-in-itself and of the object = x may seem to backfire, Schopenhauer is on surer

ground when he asks where on earth Kant gets his twelve categories from, if not from experience. We

saw in chapter 1 that Kant derives the form and authority of the moral law from the very nature of

rational will as the ability to act according to the conception of laws. Nothing comparable is

forthcoming, from Kant, for the categories of the understanding. As noted in the previous section, Kant

traces their necessary unity to its ultimate ground in the original synthetic unity of apperception. But

while there is at least a plausible connection between the will as practical reason and Kant's

formulations of the categorical imperative, Kant does not offer any real line of argument from the unity

of apperception to the particular forms and number of the categories. These categories may well be our

fundamental forms of judgment, but how they might be derived from either the unity of apperception or

the nature of our understanding, independently of experience and even of our particular forms of

34 WWV, pp.517-518.35 WWV, p.529.

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intuition, is hardly clear.36

Kant cannot avoid the question by insisting that the necessity and universality of the categories'

application to objects of experience can only be secured if the derivation of the categories is kept

independent of our forms of intuition. Schopenhauer is not arguing that the law of causality is

established empirically, from experience. For Schopenhauer, the understanding's application of the law

of causality to perception is what first makes experience possible, as 'reales Ding' in contrast to mere

'Phantasiegebilde'.37 Similarly for Kant, the spatio-temporal schema of causality is not derived, or

established, from experience. The schemata first make experience possible as acts of synthesis in

accordance with necessary and universal rules (e.g. every cause must precede its effect in time). In

contrast to the categories of the understanding, however, they are specific to our forms of intuition,

space and time. For Schopenhauer, the Kantian categories, if they are genuinely distinct from the

schemata, must be concepts abstracted from the latter, which therefore have logical priority. The

Kantian hierarchy is, says Schopenhauer, 'im diametralen Gegensatz gegen unsere Darstellung, nach

welcher der Begriff allein von der Anschauung Werth und Wahrheit erhält.'38

36 While this was a mainstay of Kant-criticism in Schopenhauer's day, a seminal early 20 th century work by Klaus Reich argues that Kant in fact succeeds, at least to a much greater extent than was for a long time appreciated, in deriving the categories from the underlying unity of the understanding's acts of judgment, i.e., from the unity of apperception. (See Klaus Reich, The Completeness of Kant's Table of Judgments, tr. Kneller, J. and Losonsky, M., Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1992.) However, the significance of this point in the present context should not be overstated. As Lewis White Beck points out, in his sympathetic and appreciative foreword to the just-noted English translation of Reich's work: 'We must, however, always remember that the necessary systematic wholeness and unity of mind that are to explain everything else are themselves wholly inexplicable by us, and what is necessary for us human beings can be founded only on some specifiable (though inexplicable) peculiarities of the human mind. In the very midst of the Transcendental Deduction, Kant warns against expecting too much: “The peculiarity of our understanding, that it can produce a priori unity of apperception solely by means of the categories, and only by such and so many, is as little capable of further explanation as why we have just these and not other functions of judgment, or why space and time are the only forms of our possible intuition”' (p.xvi; the citation of Kant is from KrV B145, and the italics are added by Beck). In other words, while Kant may not have simply empirically lifted the categories from a long-established logical table of judgments, but rather genuinely traced them back to their ground in the synthetic, or transcendental, unity of apperception, this does not fully explain why our understanding should produce precisely the twelve categories it does. This is all we need for the Schopenhauerean critique developed below. On the other hand, Schopenhauer's 'abstractionism' about concepts might be seen as a real weakness and source of confusion in his own work, and as marring his critique of Kant's deduction. I'll make a further note or two about Schopenhauer's 'abstractionism' below, but these complications are beyond the scope of the present study. I want simply to lay out the heart of Schopenhauer's critique in the clearest light possible.

37 WWV, p.528.38 WWV, p.524.

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In other words, Schopenhauer questions the plausibility of the Kantian hierarchy that sets the

understanding as lawgiver over the transcendental imagination. He thinks Kant is wrong, in the

Transcendental Analytic, to isolate the understanding from actual objects of experience, in order to

derive the categories of the understanding as rules for the presentation of 'objects in general,' i.e., as

categories suitable, at least in principle, for intuition that may be given through forms different (though

still sensible) from space and time, and for thinking, even if not cognizing, supersensible objects. The

approach Kant takes forces him to appeal to a second faculty, the transcendental imagination, in order

to explain the use of the categories in actual empirical cognition, which for us is always spatio-

temporal. Schopenhauer thinks Kant has things upside down, since, according to Schopenhauer, what

Kant calls the categories are concepts that could only be abstracted39 from, and are therefore grounded

in, our actual spatio-temporal cognition of objects.

Indeed, Schopenhauer rejects the complicated relation of categories and schemata altogether. He

reduces these to the single law of causality, which does not belong so much to the subject, or to a

transcendental understanding, as to the act of perception in which the subject and object are mutually

conditioning. In the act of perception, the forms of intuition, i.e., space and time, and the law of the

understanding, i.e., causality, are equally primordial. For Schopenhauer, it makes no more sense to

think that the law of causality (or the Kantian categories) could be applied to different forms of

intuition, than it does to think that a different law (or different categories) could be applied to spatial-

temporal intuition. Even if there is no logical contradiction in either scenario, we still cannot imagine

any real possibility for either. The understanding is thus not, for Schopenhauer, a faculty that produces

39 Whether Schopenhauer himself has a coherent account of this process of abstraction, of how, in particular, concepts are first abstracted from the perception of particulars, is a fair question. Julian Young, for one, argues convincingly that Schopenhauer's 'abstractionist' account of concept-formation is plagued by fatal difficulties. (See Julian Young, Willing and Unwilling: A Study in the Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, Martinus Nijhoff Publisher, Boston 1987, pp.18-25. The citations of Young that follow are given with page numbers from this publication, except where otherwise indicated.) Here I'm not interested in developing or defending Schopenhauer's abstractionism, but simply in showing how it figures in his critique of Kant.

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the law, or possesses the concept, of causality independently of spatio-temporal experience,40 such that

a second faculty is then required to produce a schema appropriate to the latter. For Schopenhauer, the

schemata represent the bizarre aberration of philosophical thought having lost its orientation by trying

to ground the concrete in the abstract.41 This disorientation is the result of having isolated the subject,

with its categories of the understanding, from its necessary correlate, i.e., the object of experience. This

isolation shows, for Schopenhauer, that Kant envisions an 'independent' subject confronting a

correspondingly independent object (the thing-in-itself), with the latter then 'causing' representations in

the former.

The motto of idealism, as Schopenhauer understands it, is: No object without subject, and no

subject without object.42 It is really in holding to the second half of this motto that Schopenhauer most

clearly opposes himself to Kant, yet he often focuses on the first half, making his arguments somewhat

oblique. The fundamental difference between Schopenhauer's idealist foundations and Kant's comes

across in statements like the following:

Ich habe es oben als das Hauptverdienst Kants aufgestellt, daß er die Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich unterschied, diese ganze sichtbare Welt für Erscheinung erklärte und daher den Gesetzen derselben alle Gültigkeit über die Erscheinung hinaus absprach. Es ist aber sehr sonderbar, je es ist als sein erster großer Fehler anzusehn, daß er jene bloß relative Existenz der Erscheinung nicht aus der einfachen, so nahe liegenden, unleugbaren Wahrheit 'Kein Objekt ohne Subjekt' erklärte [...]43

Of course, it is crucial to Kant's philosophy as a whole not to take as starting point the mutual

40 VW, p.131 (§35): 'die Verstandesform der Kausalität [ist] nicht für sich und abgesondert ein Gegenstand des Vorstellungsvermögens, sondern kommt erst mit und and an dem Materiellen der Erkenntnis ins Bewußtseyn.' (Page numbers for VW are throughout, unless otherwise specified from Schopenhauers Werke volume 1, part I, F. U. Brockhaus, 1972.)

41 WWV, pp.532-535. 42 E.g., WWV, pp.38-9: 'alles, wozu dieser [Satz vom Grunde] führt, immer selbst wieder abhängig und relativ, immer nur

Erscheinung, nicht Ding an sich ist; dass er ferner gar nicht das Subjekt trifft, sondern nur Form der Objekte ist, die eben deshalb nicht Dinge an sich sind, und dass mit dem Objekt schon sofort das Subjekt und mit diesem jenes daist: also weder das Objekt zum Subjekt, noch dieses zu jenem erst als Folge zu seinem Grunde hinzukommen kann.' Fichte committed an 'alte[n] Grundfehler,' according to Schopenhauer, in trying to ground the object in the subject, with the consequence that 'der Satz vom Grunde daher, eben wie zuvor, eine unbedingte Gültigkeit behielt und das Ding an sich, statt wie sonst ins Objekt, jetzt in das Subjekt des Erkennens verlegt war, die gänzliche Relativität dieser beiden aber, welche anzeigt, dass das Ding an sich, oder innere Wesen der Welt, nicht in ihnen, sondern ausser diesem, wie ausser jedem anderen nur beziehungsweise Existirenden zu suchen sei, nach wie vor unerkannt blieb' (emphasis added).

43 WWV, p.514.

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conditioning of the subject and object. Particularly for his practical philosophy, Kant needs the

spontaneity of our higher cognitive faculties to be not necessarily restricted to their relation to objects

of experience. That is at least one major reason why he has to develop the relatively complicated

picture, outlined in section 2.2, in which the spontaneity of the higher faculties is related to the

receptivity of the empirical self through the responsiveness of common sense and of the feeling of

respect for the moral law.

Schopenhauer explains that Kant 'den Kausalnexus unter den Namen “Grund der Erscheinung”

für seine falsche Ableitung des Dinges an sich aufspart', from the following 'secret motive.' 44 Kant

didn't want to ground intuition in the 'Beziehn der Sinnesempfindung auf ihre äußere Ursache' because

then 'die Anschauung intellektuel würde, was er nicht zugehen darf. Überdies scheint er gefürchtet zu

haben, daß wenn man den Kausalnexus zwischen Sinnesempfindung und Objekt gelten läßt, letzteres

sofort zum Ding an sich werden und den Locke'schen Empirismus einführen würde.'45 However,

beyond the central concerns of his practical philosophy mentioned in the previous paragraph, it seems

rather that Kant didn't want to ground intuition in this Schopenhauerean way because this would be to

confuse, as Kant sees it, the rational operation of our cognitive faculties with the causal affections of

our sense organs and the causal processes in our brains.

Schopenhauer goes on to say that in his own philosophy the apparent threat of Lockean

empiricism 'wird beseitigt durch die Besonnenheit, welche uns vorhält, daß das Kausalitätsgesetz

subjektiven Ursprungs ist, so gut wie die Sinnesempfindung selbst, überdies auch der eigene Leib,

sofern er im Raum erscheint, bereits zu den Vorstellungen gehört. Aber Dies einzugestehn verhinderte

Kanten seine Furcht vor dem Berkeley'schen Idealismus.'46 Starting from the mutual conditioning of

perceiving subject and perceived object, Schopenhauer has no need for schemata or Kantian common

44 WWV, p.529.45 WWV, pp.529-530.46 WWV, p.530.

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sense (Gemeinsinn). As he puts it, in explicit contrast to Kant, 'Die Anschauung ist sofort objektiv [...]

Die Anschauung ist demnach wirklich intellektual, was gerade Kant leugnet.'47 Intuition is already

necessarily structured by the forms of space, time and the law of causality. Schopenhauer places all

three on the same epistemological level, i.e., he does not agree with Kant that we can intelligibly so

much as think the law of causality outside of space and time. Space, time and the law of causality

together constitute the very 'principium individuationis,' for Schopenhauer, that is, the necessary

condition for any plurality of objects whatsoever.48

Thus objects exist only as perceptions for a subject, and the subject, at least the knowing

subject,49 exists only in applying its forms of knowledge to the objects perceived. Schopenhauer breaks

out, as he sees it, of this Berkeleyian idealism, through his discovery of the will as thing-in-itself,

which is neither subject nor object. The following subsection, 2.3.2, examines Schopenhauer's

conception of the thing-in-itself. Kant however cannot allow the subject to be so dependent on an

object, without losing the noumenal self central to his moral philosophy, and he repeatedly stresses the

importance for his moral philosophy of having derived the categories of the understanding as categories

for thinking 'objects in general,' independently of any spatio-temporal conditions.50 Not surprisingly, as

we'll see at the end of 2.3.2, Schopenhauer thinks he ought precisely to lose the noumenal self.

In a nutshell, this is the core of Schopenhauer's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy: Kant's

initial isolation of the subject from the object, in the deduction of the understanding's categories, makes

it impossible to maintain a properly idealist standpoint in accounting for the 'givenness' of objects to

this subject. The strength of this critique lies in calling attention to the somewhat mysterious

47 WWV, p.525.48 An exception to this rule might seem to be given by the Platonic Ideas, as Schopenhauer understands them. There is

undoubtedly a plurality of them, and yet Schopenhauer often seems to think of them as outside space, time, and particular causal relations. I don't want to take up the issue here, but Young argues persuasively that we ought not to understand Schopenhauer's Ideas in this way, but rather as regular spatio-temporal objects, perceived in a distinctive, 'artistic' way. See Young, pp.92-93.

49 As opposed to the willing subject; more on this contrast below.50 See, especially, KpV 5:141, but also 5:49, 5:50, 5:54.

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appearance of Kant's twelve categories,51 and to the correspondingly mysterious theoretical role of the

Kantian thing-in-itself, the mysteriousness of which only deepens once Kant finds a very different

'practical' role for this thing-in-itself.

Even supposing these Schopenhauerean points well taken, namely, that Kant leaves unexplained

and unmotivated the particular forms of the categories as categories for thinking objects in general, and

that he leaves the role of the thing-in-itself ambiguous, Schopenhauer's critique as laid out so far still

does not seem to engage Kant's philosophy very deeply. The mutual conditioning of subject and object

is a very different starting point for idealism than the spontaneous-but-discursive understanding central

to Kant's transcendental idealism. Schopenhauer may offer certain grounds for preferring the former,

but so far we haven't seen any particular reason why these should count for Kant.

2.3.2 Schopenhauer's critique of the theoretical framework of Kant's practical philosophy

We've seen Schopenhauer criticize Kant's introduction of the thing-in-itself; we turn now to his

own conception. From this conception and the critique just laid out in 2.3.1, I'll draw some important

consequences in this subsection, bearing on key practical notions such as motivation and freedom. In

particular, we'll examine Schopenhauer's contentions that feeling is definitive of both the first-person

perspective (most notably, through the suffering of desire) and moral goodness (through compassion),

that human agency subordinates reason to will, and that there is a fundamental opposition between pure

knowing subject and will. A crucial upshot, for our purposes, is that Schopenhauer's position

accommodates an unambiguously deterministic conception of desire, which he turns to advantage in his

critique of the Kantian framework of practical philosophy.52

51 Cf. note 36 above on Reich and The Completeness of Kant's Table of Judgments.52 As with 'deterministic conception of the inclinations' in regard to Kant, so 'deterministic conception of desires' in regard

to Schopenhauer is something of a short-hand phrase. What I mean by it is a conception of desire such that, if desires are our only source of motivation, then human agency is strictly deterministic. Schopenhauer, moreover, does think that desires are our only source of motivation, as we'll now see, whereas Kant of course denies that inclinations are our only source of motivation and therefore also denies that human agency is strictly deterministic.

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The Will as thing-in-itself: causality 'seen from the inside'

In KrV, Kant gives the following general definition of character: 'Es muß aber eine jede

wirkende Ursache einen Charakter haben, d.i. ein Gesetz ihrer Kausalität, ohne welches sie gar nicht

Ursache sein würde.'53 This conception of character is central to Schopenhauer's philosophy, and for

him it applies in exactly the same way to personal character as it does to the character of physical laws.

Thus, for instance, the law of gravity is a rule according to which a given state of affairs, i.e., a certain

distribution of mass, causes a subsequent state of affairs. The particular form of this rule is the

'character' of the law of gravity. Similarly, a person's character is, for Schopenhauer, the rule according

to which given motives, perceived or reflected upon by that person, produce subsequent actions. That

is, a person has character insofar as her actions follow upon a rule that binds them, as effects, to

specific motives as cause.

A word, then, needs to be said about motives. In his doctoral dissertation, completed five years

before WWV and to be read, he insists, as introduction to WWV, Schopenhauer distinguishes four

different expressions of the principle of sufficient reason. One of these expressions, or 'roots', is

causality, in accordance with which all phenomenal events are fully determined. Another root is that of

motivation, giving an equally deterministic account of animal actions, with every action fully

determined by its motive. (The other two roots consist in the ground of judgment, or logical truth, and

the ground of mathematical truth, given through the forms of space and time.)

Motivation, Schopenhauer says, 'ist die Kausalität von innen gesehn,'54 and is in a sense then

just a different perspective on causality, the first root of the principle of sufficient reason. Motivation is

causality as it passes through the medium of perception. As such, motivation only has effect where

there is perception, which is to say in the animal kingdom.55 Through perception, animals detect danger,

53 KrV, A539/B567.54 VW, p.145 (§43): 'Hieraus giebt sich der wichtige Satz: die Motivation ist die Kausalität von innen gesehn. [...] Diese

Einsicht ist der Grundstein meiner ganzen Metaphysik.'55 As noted in the previous section, perception is 'already intellectual' for Schopenhauer, i.e., already contains the

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food, competitors, etc. Clearly perception of these things moves animals to respond in various ways.

For Schopenhauer, this is structurally the same as causes bringing about their effects in accordance with

any other empirical law; the laws of motivation are, according to Schopenhauer, the immutable

character of the species, for non-human animals, and individual (also immutable) character for humans

(though each of our individual characters also expresses the idea of humanity in its particular way).

This particular way of fixing characters, especially with regard to what Schopenhauer supposes are

immutable animal species, may seem rather unconvincing to today's reader. For our purposes in this

section, we can keep in mind the somewhat weaker claim that, insofar as an animal or person has

character, there must some pattern or rule, according to which certain kinds of motives lead that animal

or person to certain corresponding actions.56

Reason, as the capacity to manipulate abstract concepts, distinguishes humans from other

animals. Thus, whereas for animals the medium through which motives can move them is restricted to

immediate perception, humans have the ability to calculate in terms of things not present. The medium

through which motives can reach us is thus greatly expanded, but this does not, for Schopenhauer, alter

the causal determinism that governs our actions.57 Animal actions, including those of humans, follow

their motives with the same causal necessity as do effects their causes in the case of the empirical laws

of inorganic nature.58

So far, then, we haven't seen any reason why Schopenhauer would call motivation 'causality

seen from within.' As just described, the causality of human and animal characters looks just like the

understanding's application of the law of causality. Thus Schopenhauer insists animals have understanding, though not abstract reason. Indeed, he argues that Kant's apparent denial of causal perception to animals shows the absurdity of the Kantian position.

56 What this weaker claim cannot do is secure Schopenhauer's identification of the characters of empirical laws, including the characters of animal species and human individuals, with eternal Platonic Ideas.

57 See, e.g., VW §26.58 Plants have a status somewhere in between. They don't have understanding, and therefore lack perception as well, but

they do respond to stimulus in a way that is, for Schopenhauer, closer to acting on motives than is mere inorganic causation. Indeed the transition that takes us from causation without perception to causation through the medium of perception is a gradual one, for Schopenhauer, starting from the lowest grade of the will's objectification in physical laws to the highest grade of objectification in the individual characters of human beings.

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causality of other empirical laws. Insofar as the characters of humans and animal species are open to

observation and are therefore possible objects of knowledge, they should look the same; the characters

of humans and animals are knowable in just the same way as the characters of other empirical laws,

except that we must look for the cause of an action, i.e., its motive, in what is perceived by the agent, or

perceived and calculated in the case of a human agent.

Moreover, you know my character in exactly the same way that I know it, i.e., by observing my

behaviour and noting which actions follow upon which motives. Of course, I can try to hide my

motives from you, but Schopenhauer points out that they may just as often be hidden from me; indeed

someone else may well on occasion perceive my own motives more clearly than I do. In any case,

Schopenhauer's point is that this is not a matter of principle. My relation to my character as my

character is not given through any privileged position as knower.

In fact, Schopenhauer argues that if we were nothing but knowers of the world, there would be

no individual, or first-person, perspective.59 If we were merely knowing subjects, the world would

simply 'wie ein wesenloser Traum oder ein gespensterhaftes Luftgebilde an uns vorüberziehn.'60 As

mere knowing subject, I would neither be any individual self nor, therefore, have any particular

character. I would be 'pure knowing subject.' If not a particular perspective as knower, what then does

constitute my existence as a particular individual?

Schopenhauer's answer to this question is the key to his moral philosophy as a whole.

According to Schopenhauer, that which distinguishes, for me, my character from yours is that I feel

mine. My character is the rule that binds together given motives with my subsequent actions. I feel this

59 See, especially, WWV, §§17-18. Schopenhauer puts the point somewhat whimsically in the following example. Facing the world with only the fullest causal knowledge, 'müsste dem philosophischen Forscher doch immer so zu Muthe seyn, wie Jemanden, der, er wüsste gar nicht wie, in eine ihm gänzlich unbekannte Gesellschaft geraten wäre, von deren Mitgliedern, der Reihe nach, ihm immer eines das andere als dessen Freund und Vetter präsentirte und so hinlänglich bekannt machte: er selbst aber hätte unterdessen, in dem er jedesmal sich über den Präsentirten zu freuen versicherte, stets die Frage auf den Lippen: “aber wie Teufel komme ich denn zu der ganzen Gesellschaft?”' (p.117)

60 WWV, p.118.

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binding as will, or desire. This feeling is absolutely ('toto genere') different from the relation between

subject and object. As a perceiving, knowing subject, anything I discover about my character can, in

principle, just as well be discovered and known by anyone else, with suitable opportunity and skill for

observation. Insofar as feeling distinguishes, for me, my desires from yours, it must therefore not be

mediated by the subject-object relation. Desire is what I feel, and it is best described, in its immediacy,

as a kind of brute longing or striving for satisfaction.61

Insofar as causality can be 'seen' from within, the inside is a felt longing for satisfaction. The

'sight' with which I see it is again this same feeling itself: obviously visual and spatial metaphors fail,

strictly speaking, to capture the immediacy that Schopenhauer is after here. However, the structure is

somewhat more complicated in terms of how we, as individuals, suffer such feeling.62 All of my

experience as the individual I am is mediated at least to some degree by the forms governing the

relation of subject and object. For, as an individual, I myself exist only as conditioned by these forms,

namely, by space, time and causality. Moreover, even my inner felt experience of desire is conditioned

at the very least by time, since I experience particular desires at particular times. My desires can never

consist purely of a brute undifferentiated longing, since as my desires they express my individual

character. Thus the longing for satisfaction, as it is actually expressed in the world, is always 'filtered'

through the prism of individual characters.

The immediacy of desire, as individuals actually experience it,63 is thus a matter of degree. But

61 Various characterizations Schopenhauer gives in WWV: 'ein endloses Streben' (p.195); 'unermüdlich streben wir von Wunsch zu Wunsch' (p.375); 'ein Streben ohne Ziel und ohne Ende' (p.378); 'nie erfüllten Wünsche, das vereitelte Streben' (p.380); 'das Spiel des steten Ueberganges vom Wunsch zur Befriedigung und von dieser zum neuen Wunsch' (p.196); on 'das innere Wesen [...] des Thieres und des Menschen': 'Wollen und Streben ist sein ganzes Wesen, einem unlöschbaren Durst gänzlich zu vergleichen' (p.367).

62 Young argues that this is Schopenhauer's more considered view and that 'Schopenhauer does not really sever the cognitive from the conative in the way he sometimes appears to think he does' (p.64). I think this is fair as far as our everyday motivation and agency as individuals are concerned. However, I argue in sections 2.4 and 2.5 below that the ambiguity surrounding the severing of the cognitive from the conative runs very deep in Schopenhauer's philosophy, and that he both needs this severing, and yet must not allow it, in order to establish renunciation as an ethical ideal. Hence it's not surprising his philosophy is ambivalent about this severing.

63 There is much more to be said on this point than I indicate here, and I'll take it up again in section 2.5. Insofar as the individual is knowing subject, she cannot, as such, have immediate experience of the will as a mere blind, brute longing,

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Schopenhauer thinks we can isolate, at least ideally, the immediacy of desire as a felt pressure to move

in the direction of the desire's object. (This is the defining move of Schopenhauer's moral philosophy

and we will return to the question of its justification in section 2.5.) The definite shape of any particular

desire follows upon the presentation of motives to my character in perception and deliberation, i.e.,

through the mediation of the understanding and reason. But the underlying motive force is in each and

every case the same insatiable striving for satisfaction. Thus our being is composed of two

heterogeneous elements, of, namely, the knowing subject and the will. Schopenhauer at times posits an

underlying unity between these elements, but at other times states that they constitute no real unity in-

itself.64 Even where he posits such a unity, however, he calls it 'das Wunder κατ' εξοχην,' i.e. 'the

miracle par excellence', claiming that no explanation can be given for it, beyond simply acknowledging

as a fact of experience that our individual existence always comprises these two heterogeneous

elements. In any case, underlying unity or not, Schopenhauer is clear that a dissolution of their co-

existence is possible, as we will see in the following section.

Now, particular desires arise through the understanding perceiving the world around the subject

and through reason calculating consequences of possible actions. Through the understanding's

perception and reason's calculation, motives are 'presented' to the will, giving rise to particular desires

according to the character of the perceiving subject. As noted in the previous paragraph, the motive

force behind every particular desire remains always the longing for satisfaction as such. To pursue this

satisfaction through the endless variety of definite desires is thus to put reason and understanding at the

i.e., of the will 'in-itself.' Since the individual is both knowing and willing subject, it might seem that as the latter she does indeed have immediate experience of the will and its blind inner striving. However, the issue is complicated by the fact that in Chapter 7 of VW, and again §17 of WWV, Schopenhauer posits an 'immediate unity' (which he calls 'das Wunder κατ' εξοχην') of knowing subject and willing subject, while in a note (p.327) to §54 in WWV, he states that 'diese Duplicität unsers Wesens ruht nicht in einer für sich bestehenden Einheit'. I read these points together as saying that, insofar as the individual is the unity of knower and will, the former is not, within this unity, the 'pure knowing subject,' nor is the latter, within this unity, the 'will-in-itself'. Indeed in Book 4 of WWV, redemption is presented as the liberation of the knowing subject from the will, such that in this separation we 'recover' the pure knowing subject and the will-in-itself, i.e., in its immediacy apart from any relation between subject and object. I will address the nature of this unity, and potential separation, of willing and knowing in detail in section 2.5.

64 See previous note.

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service of the will. Since my perspective as individual is constituted by the felt longing of such pursuit,

we can put the point as follows: what constitutes us as individuals, what pins each of us to our own

first-person perspective, is the subordination of cognition to the will. Schopenhauer himself gives

essentially this formulation in a somewhat parenthetical comment in WWV Book 4, speaking of

'Erkenntniss, so wie sie, dem Willen zu seinem Dienst entsprossen, dem individuo als solchem wird.'65

We feel this subordination as longing for satisfaction, which is, for Schopenhauer, suffering.

That is, as we will explore in detail in 2.4, suffering is the subordination of cognition to the will.

Redemption thus consists in setting cognition free, as 'pure knowing subject,' from this subjection to the

will. It is simultaneously, then, the annihilation of the ego, i.e., of first-person perspective and

individuality. This, again, is a topic for section 2.4 and 2.5 below. Before ending the present section,

however, I want to relate Schopenhauer's conception of the will as thing-in-itself to his critique of

Kant's theoretical philosophy and to the deterministic conception of inclinations and desires.

The noumenal self: a 'sceptre of wooden iron'

In Section 2.2, I noted that it is crucial for Kant's account of theoretical cognition that we keep

the rational and causal orders distinct. Schopenhauer, as we saw, often seems either not to understand

this distinction, or simply to ignore it. But now consider Kant's account of the inclinations. They incline

the will through the faculty of feeling pleasure and displeasure. This inclination, or incitement, of the

will cannot be simply a causal interaction, for the will is a rational faculty. In nonetheless insisting at

times, as we saw in chapter 1, on a mechanical, or deterministic phenomenal-causal, conception of the

inclinations, Kant seems to conflate the rational and causal orders in a 'practical sense' analogous to

conflating the manifold of intuition with causal sensory impingements in the analysis of theoretical

cognition. For the inclinations to so much as present themselves to the will as possible subjective

grounds of motivation, whether or not they are subsequently taken up into a maxim determining the

65 WWV, p.416.

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will, they cannot be merely causal entities.

(We might gain some perspective on just what is at stake here, through a quick preview of an

issue addressed in section 2.5 and the following chapters. A crucial point of contention between

Nietzsche, on the one hand, and Kant and Schopenhauer, on the other, is whether it is at all intelligible

to separate some notion of pleasure or satisfaction as an underlying motivational component common

to all inclinations and desires. A defining feature of the mechanistic, or deterministic phenomenal-

causal conception at issue here is that it involves precisely this separation, so that the longing for

pleasure or satisfaction becomes the common motive force through which inclinations or desires 'push'

us to act. For Schopenhauer, this follows from the very definition of desire (though, again, this is not to

say that pleasure is always an agent's explicit aim or conscious goal). Kant's considered account of

motivation, as we saw in chapter 1, does not allow a mechanistic interpretation of this motive force, but

he holds that if the inclinations were our only source of motivation, then our agency would be

'mechanical' and its common underlying motive force would be pleasure. Moreover, though

inclinations are not actually our only source of motivation, according to Kant, pleasure remains a

determining ground of choice in all actions that are not adopted out of respect for the moral law. As

we'll see below, Nietzsche considers it a crucial mistake and concession to the hedonistic or utilitarian

perspective to imagine that we can isolate pleasure as such as an underlying motivational component

common to all inclinations and desires.)

Schopenhauer might now be seen as in some ways more consistent with respect to the supposed

distinction between rational and causal orders. The 'rational order' is for him always an abstraction

from the actual world of experience. Reason is the capacity to abstract from objects of experience, and

to manipulate the resulting abstract concepts, so that we can draw general conclusions about, or

specific consequences for, objects of experience.66 These objects are given in empirical intuition, in

66 Though cf. note 39 above on the difficulties with Schopenhauer's 'abstractionism.'

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which the understanding already carries out its 'einzige Funktion,' namely, the 'Anwendung der

Erkenntniss vom Kausalnexus [...] auf die Sinnesempfindung.'67 As Schopenhauer puts it, 'ist in der

Anschauung selbst schon die empirische Realität, mithin die Erfahrung, gegeben.'68 That is,

Schopenhauer denies that perception can be separated into the 'givenness' of intuition and the

'spontaneity' of the understanding's application of the categories. The understanding in Schopenhauer's

sense does not deal with concepts or categories at all, but only with application of the causal law to

sensation, through which the object of experience is presented.69 But this function of the understanding

is itself causal, as 'Gehirnfunktion,' according to Schopenhauer. Perception and cognition, we might

say, are already embedded in the causal, empirical realm.

Reason, then, can only abstract from concrete cognition of the world; it certainly cannot make

any 'practical use' of the categories to initiate new causal chains. Philosophy, for Schopenhauer, 'wird

seyn eine vollständige Wiederholung, gleichsam Abspiegelung der Welt in abstrakten Begriffen.'70 In its

theoretical use, reason acts as a conceptual mirror of the actual world, and the validity of reason's

abstract representations must always ultimately be grounded in concrete, intuited experience. Since

Schopenhauer places the activity of the understanding, in bringing about such experience, within the

causal realm,71 the Kantian distinction between transcendental and empirical orders finds no room here,

at least not in the sense of a distinction between rational and causal orders.

Kant, on the other hand, places great emphasis on this distinction, carefully separating the

rational and causal orders when explaining objective experience in the first Critique. He then struggles,

however, to fit his practical philosophy into the framework thus carved out by the theoretical. In

67 WWV, p.525.68 WWV, p.525.69 WWV, p.525.70 WWV, p.99.71 To be sure, Schopenhauer insists that the knowing subject, at least the pure knowing subject, is not governed by the

causality of the empirical realm. Nonetheless the activity Schopenhauer ascribes to the understanding, namely, the a priori cognition of the law of causality, he describes repeatedly in physiological and causal terms. See note 26 above.

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chapter 1, we considered this struggle mainly from the perspective of the second Critique, i.e., from the

point of view of practical reason's lawgiving. In order to fit his practical philosophy within the same

framework developed for the theoretical in the first Critique, Kant identifies the causality of pure

practical reason with noumenal causality, and its absence – i.e., the hypothetical case in which the

inclinations would be our only source of motivation – with mechanical determination of our actions. I

won't reproduce my chapter 1 argument here, but will take a few paragraphs to highlight elements of

disanalogy between the lawgivings of theoretical and practical reason, respectively, that help explain

why the separation of rational and causal orders in Kant's theoretical philosophy is difficult to carry

over into his practical philosophy.

In the first Critique, Kant, in accordance with the distinction between rational and causal orders,

is careful not to think of the givenness of intuition in terms of the causal impingements on our sense

organs. He therefore also carefully avoids identifying the synthetic unity of apperception with any

empirical ego or consciousness. The unity of apperception grounds the unity of the understanding's

categories as rules in accordance with which we must synthesize our intuitions if we are to accurately

cognize the world around us. Determining empirical truths about the world, accurately perceiving the

world around us, is not a matter of performing calculations over sensory impingements, even though

we would not have empirical intuition if we did not also have causal sensory impingements. In

particular, our theoretical cognition of the world – the understanding's 'acts of synthesis' in particular –

does not, as such, produce particular empirical effects at the same level as causal impingements on our

sense organs.

In order to better understand this point, we might try to draw the following analogy between the

acts of the understanding and those of practical reason, in an effort to make Kant's use of the

inclinations coherent. In chapter 1, we considered Kant's claim that, were the inclinations our only

source of motivation – i.e., in the absence of pure practical reason – we would be reduced to mere

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mechanism of nature. I argued that this introduces considerable confusion into Kant's philosophy. But

wouldn't it be analogous to say that, in the absence of the understanding, as a higher faculty of

theoretical cognition, sensibility alone would determine our perception of the world, and would do so

in a purely phenomenal-causal sense? Maybe this would point to the kind of perception Kant takes non-

human animals to have. Of course, since we do have understanding, we cognize the world in a manner

distinct from that of other animals – notably, with a theoretical grasp of its structural and causal order

and thus of universal, communicable empirical truths. This difference affects not only our cognition of

the world, but also, of course, how we behave in it. But it doesn't follow, on the Kantian account, that

the understanding's acts of synthesis causally interfere with sensory impingements and physiological

brain processes. To imagine such interference is to confuse the rational – or transcendental – order with

the empirical-causal realm.

Can we not say something similar about the inclinations and practical reason? I.e.: if the

inclinations were our only source of motivation, we would be reduced to mere mechanism, but given

pure practical reason, the inclinations function also at a different level – analogous to that of the

sensible manifold of intuition – at which practical reason also operates, and this changes, of course, our

behaviour in the world, though not on account of reason causally interfering with the inclinations taken

in the first sense – i.e., in the sense analogous to that of causal sensory impingement. Separating these

two senses of 'inclination' – one sense analogous to causal sensory impingements, and the other to

sensible intuition – would allow Kant to consistently hold that reason can interfere with inclinations

understood in the latter sense, but not taken in the former sense.

Kant might not distinguish by name these two senses of 'inclination,' but isn't the point plausible

nonetheless? I think not, for the analogy quickly breaks down. In the case of theoretical cognition, the

same kind of causal account can, in principle, be given whether we are talking about perception (by an

animal, say) without understanding (in the Kantian sense), or by a human being with understanding.

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The account for a human being will simply be more complicated, I suppose, as far as causal events in

the brain are concerned. This causal account of perception, in terms of sensory impingements and

physiological brain functions, will not as such capture or explain what cognizing the world means, for

Kant, because such cognition must be cashed out in rational – or transcendental – terms, not causal

ones.

On the other hand, with the introduction of pure practical reason, human actions can in

principle no longer be described as motivated solely by inclination. That is, the account of human

agency as mechanically determined, with the inclinations as sole source of motivation, is no longer

right under some aspect, e.g., as the strictly empirical, causal account of human agency – but simply

false under any aspect. As I noted at the end of section 1.4 of chapter 1, the only way we could deny

this point and preserve the analogy with theoretical cognition, would be to claim that empirical

psychology could in principle give a complete causal account of agency in terms of the inclinations,

while philosophy, for instance, would talk also of respect for the moral law and pure practical reason.

Thus, in the gallows example, the empirical psychologist would conclude that the agent who gives up

his life by refusing to perjure himself is motivated by inclination, while the philosopher observes that

he must surely have done it out of respect for the moral law. This seems completely implausible.

Ultimately, I think we must conclude that Kant gives no clear sense to the notion of 'mechanical

determination' by inclinations, which we would suffer in the absence of pure practical reason, and that

his account of motivation necessarily involves the infringement of pure practical reason on the

inclinations, under any aspect or sense we give to the latter.

As it stands, Kant, at least at times, puts the inclinations under the lawgiving of the

understanding, as merely causal entities, while also allowing practical reason to infringe upon, to have

particular causal effects upon, the inclinations. In other words, Kant makes a 'mistake' analogous to the

one that Schopenhauer seems, to a Kantian, to make in conflating the rational and causal orders of

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theoretical cognition. Or, to adopt Schopenhauer's perspective, Kant made his account of perception

wildly and unnecessarily complicated by distinguishing the rational and causal orders in theoretical

cognition, but was absolutely right in taking the inclinations to belong to the phenomenal realm and its

strict causal determinism. Of course, Kant then has no right to the notion of a noumenal causality or to

any causal efficacy of pure reason. Schopenhauer dismisses the noumenal self as drawn from thin air,

and the categorical imperative, or 'unconditional ought,' as a 'Scepter aus hölzernem Eisen,'72 viewing

them as the unfortunate products of Kant's desire to reconcile happiness with virtue.

This brings us to Schopenhauer's properly moral critique of Kant's philosophy.

2.4 Schopenhauer's critique of the moral content of Kant's practical philosophy

The above theoretical critique is meant to cut the legs out from underneath the Kantian

noumenal self and practical postulates. Now, apart from the question whether Kant develops a

successful theoretical justification of the noumenal self and the postulates, we can also ask whether

moral philosophy should look to justify them at all. That is, rejecting the theoretical foundation of

Kant's ethics does not necessarily address the validity of its moral content. We might simply want to

find a better foundation for that content.

Schopenhauer is of two minds about the moral content of Kant's ethics. Or rather he argues that

Kant himself develops two morally contradictory positions. On the one hand, Kant decisively separates

the interests of virtue and happiness. In Kantian terms, the inclinations must not constitute the

subjective ground of the will's determination if an action is to have genuine moral worth. On the other

hand, Kant reconciles the interests of virtue and happiness in his conception of the highest good, as we

saw in chapter 1. These interests are, then, separate but reconcilable, as far as Kant is concerned.

Schopenhauer rejects the reconcilability of virtue and happiness, at least in the way Kant effects it. His

72 WWV, p.620.

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broadest view on Kant's ethics is summed up by two statements bookending the opening paragraph of

§3 of On the Basis of Morality (BM): 'Kant hat in der Ethik das große Verdienst, sie von allem

Eudämonismus gereinigt zu haben. [...] Freilich, wenn man es streng nehmen wollte; so hätte auch Kant

den Eudämonismus mehr scheinbar als wirklich aus der Ethik verbannt. Denn er läßt zwischen Tugend

und Glückseligkeit doch eine geheime Verbindung übrig, in seiner Lehre vom höchsten Gut, wo sie in

einem entlegenen und dunkeln Kapitel zusammenkommen, während öffentlich die Tugend gegen die

Glückseligkeit ganz fremd thut.'73

Clearly Schopenhauer is considerably more radical than Kant about the opposition between

virtue and happiness. Kant insists that we must disregard our inclinations in determining what duty

demands of us, and that, in developing moral strength of character, we must occasionally be called

upon to reject the demands of our inclinations, and appropriately respond to this call. But he does not

think that the moral law commands the renunciation of our inclinations; indeed, the moral law does not

command the suppression of any inclinations, so long, roughly speaking, as their pursuit is not, in any

given situation, contradictory with everyone else pursuing similar inclinations in a similar situation.

Kant insists only that there must be occasions of conflict between duty and inclination, so that the

moral disposition can gather strength by successfully resisting the incitement of inclination. Even here,

however, the point is to develop strength of moral character, not to renounce the inclinations as

inherently opposed to virtue. The demands of duty leave plenty of room for the pursuit of happiness,

according to Kant. For Schopenhauer, on the other hand, only the complete renunciation of desires is

compatible with the highest ethical standard.

In a general sense, Schopenhauer rejects Kant's highest good because he simply does not find it

credible that a will determined towards such a good can be other than egoistic. He thinks anyone who

wants, and believes, that happiness be always proportionate to virtue, will also only want the latter as a

73 Über die Grundlage der Moral (BM), pp.117-118. (Page numbers for BM are throughout, unless otherwise specified from Schopenhauers Werke volume 4, part II, F. U. Brockhaus, 1972.)

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means to the former. Schopenhauer is of course aware of Kant's arguments against this conclusion, but

dismisses these as Kantian subtleties and sleight of hand: 'Die Glückseligkeit im höchsten Gut soll nun

zwar nicht eigentlich das Motiv zur Tugend seyn: dennoch steht sie da, wie ein geheimer Artikel,

dessen Anwesenheit alles übrige zu einem bloßen Scheinvertrage macht: sie ist nicht eigentlich der

Lohn der Tugend, aber doch eine freiwillige Gabe, zu der die Tugend, nach ausgestandener Arbeit,

verstohlen die Hand offen hält.'74

Naturally, Schopenhauer's incredulousness rests on, or is in any case reflected in, his own

account of motivation. In the remainder of this section, I look at this account, at why it rules out the

Kantian reconciliation of virtue and happiness, and at how it offers a decisive resolution, in favour of

causal determinism, of our chapter 1 Coordination Problem.

2.4.1 The individual as knower and will: cognition serving desire

As we saw in the previous section, the Schopenhauerean subject is composed of two

heterogeneous elements: the knowing subject and the willing subject, or the subject as knower and the

subject as will. As knowing subject, I perceive and reason; as willing subject I feel. Feeling is 'toto

genere' different from perceiving and reasoning, and so the subject as will is 'toto genere' different from

the subject as knower. Every individual75 consists, however, of a unity of these two heterogeneous

elements. Indeed this unity is the body. My body is the manifestation of my will, or the manifestation

of the will-in-itself in the form of my character. Every bodily action is the expression of an act of will,

and, conversely, every act of will is expressed as bodily action.76 But it is at the same time a

manifestation of a self-conscious knowing subject. Moreover, I 'know'77 my body in two distinct ways,

74 WWV, p.621.75 Properly speaking, individual animal. Everything in this paragraphs applies to animals generally, except for the fact that

only humans possess reason (see previous section). In the following I use 'individual' to mean 'individual human,' unless otherwise specified.

76 See WWV, §18, especially pp.119-120.77 Schopenhauer occasionally uses 'know' (or 'cognize': 'erkennen') in this broader sense to cover both the feeling of the

willing subject and the knowing of the knowing subject. Below I address the difficulties Schopenhauer runs into when trying to formulate the 'immediate' or 'intuitive' knowledge of feeling as abstract philosophical knowledge, i.e., as 'Wissen.' I address Schopenhauer's distinction between 'Erkenntniss' and 'Wissen' in the paragraph after next.

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namely I feel it and I perceive it. As Schopenhauer says, 'Dem Subjekt des Erkennens, welches durch

seine Identität mit dem Leibe als Individuum auftritt, ist dieser Leib auf zwei ganz verschiedene

Weisen gegeben: einmal als Vorstellung in verständiger Anschauung, also Objekt unter Objekten [...]

sodann aber auch [...] als jenes Jedem unmittelbar bekannte, welches das Wort Wille bezeichnet.'78

Schopenhauer thus calls the body 'das unmittelbare Objekt.'79

I want to make two remarks about this unity of the knowing and willing subject before further

developing Schopenhauer's account of motivation. First, as indicated in note 63 above, the exact nature

of this unity is quite mysterious, as Schopenhauer himself emphasizes. Schopenhauer speaks, on the

one hand, of an 'immediate unity' of knowing and willing. He also often characterizes, as we'll see in

detail in section 2.5, what the knowing subject knows about the will as the will's self-knowledge. On

the other hand, our twofold nature 'ruht nicht in einer für sich bestehenden Einheit,'80 and this lack of

any unity 'existing for itself' makes possible, as we'll see at the end of this section, a 'pure knowing

subject,' free from all ties to the will. The unity of knowing and willing is ambiguous, and we might

well suspect that Schopenhauer relies on this ambiguity to have it both ways. This suspicion will be a

major focus of section 2.5 below, and I raise it here simply to now bracket it for the rest of 2.4.

The second remark I want to make relates to the opposition of knowing (Wissen) and feeling

(Gefühl). This can be misleading, in part, as a matter of translation. I have followed most translations in

rendering 'das erkennende Subjekt' as 'the knowing subject,' both for consistency with translations and

because 'the cognizing subject' has perhaps too technical a ring. Here, however, Schopenhauer draws a

distinction between 'Erkenntniss' and 'Wissen' that is now hard to reproduce. For Schopenhauer, '[d]ie

abstrakte Erkenntniss allein ist also ein Wissen [...] Wissen also ist das abstrakte Bewusstseyn, das

Fixirthaben der Vernunft, des auf andere Weise überhaupt Erkannten.'81 Thus for Schopenhauer,

78 WWV, pp.119-120.79 WWV, p.120; but also many other places spread throughout Book 2, especially.80 WWV, p.327, note.81 WWV, p.60.

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anything known abstractly (i.e., by reason, thus known in the sense of Wissen) must first be known 'in

another way,' i.e., as 'anschauliche Erkenntniss.'82 Such 'intuitive knowledge' belongs to the more

general category of feeling, which Schopenhauer defines negatively as anything present to

consciousness that is 'nicht Begriffe, nicht abstrakte Erkenntniss der Vernunft.'83

I draw attention to this point because it is important that the opposition between abstract

knowledge and feeling, as Schopenhauer draws it here, is not the opposition between knowledge and

something non-cognitive. Rather, intuitive knowledge, or cognition (Erkenntniss), is given

'immediately' in feeling, the ultimate ground of all our knowledge, including the abstract knowledge of

reason, which is nothing but intuitive knowledge fixed in place conceptually. We saw in 2.3 how

Schopenhauer leans on this point in criticizing Kant's theoretical philosophy,84 and now we'll see that it

is at the heart of Schopenhauer's ethics too. Indeed the translation of the will's intuitive knowledge of

its own innermost suffering into abstract knowledge is what produces the dramatic possibility of the

will's self-annihilation.

Before addressing that conclusion of Schopenhauer's ethics, we need to return to our

examination of his account of motivation. Here the heterogeneity of knowing and willing comes to the

fore. The will-in-itself is described by Schopenhauer as a brute, insatiable striving, a longing without

aim or purpose.85 This is the motive force that underlies every action, according to Schopenhauer. Now

this feeling, i.e., the brute insatiable striving, felt in greater or lesser immediacy in all our desires, does

indeed seem to be rather non-cognitive. Recall from section 2.3 that individuality is constituted by the

82 WWV, p.60.83 WWV, p.61.84 In section 2.3, I noted that, for Schopenhauer, 'intuition is already experience.' Although I didn't relate this to feeling

there, empirical intuitions are given, for Schopenhauer, through 'Sinnesempfindungen' and these are a kind of feeling (WWV, pp.61-62). The understanding's application of the law of causality is in each case the felt application of this law to particular 'Sinnesempfindungen,' yielding perception of a particular object. See WWV, pp.61-62 also on the felt nature of geometrical truth, and its translation into abstract knowledge.

85 See note 61 above for various formulations. See also pp.194-196 and pp.364-366 for Schopenhauer's detailed description of how we find this selfsame will as 'den Kern und das Ansich jedes Dinges ausmachendes Streben' (p.365) behind all phenomena, from inorganic nature, through plants and animals, to, finally, human beings.

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subordination of the knowing subject to the will, as Schopenhauer notes in speaking of 'Erkenntniss, so

wie sie, dem Willen zu seinem Dienst entsprossen, dem individuo als solches wird.'86 The knowing

subject serves the will insofar as it presents means to pursue satisfaction of the brute striving that drives

all actions, indeed all phenomena, since motivation is merely causality 'seen from within' and this

causality reigns over all empirical nature. We might call this striving the underlying motivational

component of desire; Schopenhauer expresses the point more poetically: 'Das Grundthema aller

mannigfaltige Willensakte ist die Befriedigung der Bedürfnisse.'87

Now, the knowing subject's perception and reasoning present motives that move the will to

particular actions, according to the character of the individual. Thus 'jeder einzelne Willensakte eines

erkennenden Individuums' has 'nothwendig ein Motiv.' And just as any other natural cause, at a given

time and place, fully determines its effect, in accordance with a law that remains itself independent of

space and time, so every action is fully determined by its motive, in accordance with the 'intelligible

character' of the individual agent.88 The intelligible character lies outside of space and time and beyond

any determination by the principle of sufficient reason, and is in this sense free.

Schopenhauer in this way reconciles freedom and necessity (crediting Kant with the original

insight). There are three main elements to the Schopenhauerean conception of this reconciliation. First,

there is the absolute causal determinism that reigns in the phenomenal realm, such that every

phenomenon is fully determined by a preceding cause. Second, there are the characters (i.e., of the

causal laws) that govern the phenomenal realm, which Schopenhauer identifies with Platonic ideas, and

which include the intelligible characters of individuals. These characters provide the rules according to

which causes bring forth their effects, and as such these characters themselves lie beyond all particular

86 WWV, p.416.87 WWV, p.385.88 Of the intelligible character of the species in the case of non-human animals; though note that the intelligible character

of every individual human being also, for Schopenhauer, expresses the intelligible character of the human species from a particular angle.

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causes and effects. But finally, we have to note as third element the binding force tying every cause to

its effect, the glue of necessity itself, we might say. This binding force is the blind striving of the will-

in-itself, which Schopenhauer uncovers as the inner reality of all phenomena.89

Thus Schopenhauer says the individual acts in each particular case on some motive, but if we

were to ask him why he wills or acts at all 'würde er keine Antwort haben, vielmehr würde ihm die

Frage ungereimt erscheinen.'90 Schopenhauer takes this to mean that underlying the conjunction of

every cause and its effect, of every motive and its action, there must always be the blind striving of

will, the binding force of every causal relation, that is in itself utterly purposeless. As Schopenhauer

explains: 'In der That, gehört Abwesenheit alles Zieles, aller Gränzen, zum Wesen des Willens an sich,

der ein endloses Streben ist. Dies wurde bereits oben, bei Erwähnung der Centrifugalkraft berührt [...]'91

Schopenhauer then traces this endless striving through the various 'grades of objectification' of the will,

up to humans, concluding '[d]iesem allen zufolge, weiss der Wille, wo ihn Erkenntniss beleuchtet, stets

was er jetzt, was er hier will; nie aber was er überhaupt will: jeder einzelne Akt hat einen Zweck; das

gesammte Wollen keinen [...]'92

This Schopenhauerean account of motivation has the striking consequence that every single

object of desire is illusory. Every individual act of will is determined by a particular motive, has a

particular aim; but the underlying motive force has no particular goal. As noted in section 1.2 in chapter

1, we might put the point by saying that, for Schopenhauer, every particular act of will involves a

structural discrepancy between its motive of choice and its driving motive force. The motive force,

which causally binds the will through a particular motive to the necessarily resulting action, is the

longing for satisfaction as such, i.e., a blind striving with no particular aim, certainly not aiming at the

89 Once again, WWV pp.194-196 and pp.364-366 describe the ultimate identity behind all phenomena of this blind, aimless striving.

90 WWV, p.195.91 WWV, p.195.92 WWV, p.196.

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particular action (or motive of choice) to which it nonetheless drives the individual in any given case.

Deception and disappointment are thus built into the very nature of willing, according to Schopenhauer.

Or, as he puts it, the inner being of will 'zeigt sich endlich auch in den menschlichen Bestrebungen und

Wünschen, welche ihre Erfüllung immer als letztes Ziel des Wollens uns vorgaukeln; sobald sie aber

erreicht sind, sich nicht mehr ähnlich sehn und daher bald vergessen, antiquirt und eigentlich immer,

wenn gleich nicht eigenständlich, als verschwundene Täuschungen bei Seite gelegt werden.'93

At this point, we can already hear Schopenhauer's pessimism grumbling into high-gear. But, in

fact, objectively considered, the account of motivation thus far presented does not necessarily drive us

to despair or a gloomy pessimism. That, by the very nature of our will, we are never without a

particular goal or object of desire that promises us final satisfaction, is not necessarily a miserable state

of affairs, even if we are always mistaken about the ultimate value of attaining our particular goals. To

understand the full force of Schopenhauer's pessimism, we have to attend to the particular

characterization he gives to the will's endless striving.

2.4.2 Schopenhauerean pessimism: psychological hedonism and a 'negative' conception of happiness

Schopenhauerean pessimism involves the perhaps surprising combination of psychological

hedonism and a negative conception of happiness. By 'psychological hedonism,' I mean that aspect of

Schopenhauer's account of motivation that we've just examined, namely the view that the motive force

behind every action is ultimately a striving for satisfaction. In every act of will, says Schopenhauer, the

'Erreichen des Ziels' is 'Befriedigung, Wohlseyn, Glück.'94 We also saw how every particular act of will,

every particular desire, creates the illusion that its object promises this satisfaction 'as such.'95 That is,

93 WWV, p.196.94 WWV, p.365.95 In chapter 1, section 1.2, we saw, in discussing Kant's account of motivation, that we ought to draw a distinction

between the motive force of an action and its motive of choice. Such a distinction is especially pertinent to Schopenhauer's account of motivation. For, although his language occasionally suggests otherwise, Schopenhauer does not hold the extreme (and implausible) view that pleasure is always the intention or aim of action, or that pleasure must be the focus of an agent's deliberation. In fact, Schopenhauer holds that the individual agent generally does not realize that the force or strength of her desires is given by the will's basic striving being focused on a particular aim or object; she would therefore generally give a different reason altogether for her interest in this aim or object. As we'll see below,

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we mistakenly expect that the satisfaction of a particular desire will offer the satisfaction for which the

will-in-itself strives in all its manifestations, a necessarily elusive satisfaction because this striving in

reality has no aim, no goal, no possible resting place: 'das Ziel war nur scheinbar: der Besitz nimmt den

Reiz weg: unter einer neuen Gestalt stellt sich der Wunsch, das Bedürfnis wieder ein [...]'96 Thus the

satisfaction of every particular desire does nothing more than reveal the deception, while offering at

best a temporary relief from the will's pressing demand. Inevitably, the will, true to its insatiable nature,

produces ever-new desires, all carrying the same illusory promise of final satisfaction.

But why should this be a cause for pessimism? Why shouldn't we speak here of the

inexhaustible fertility of will, an endless source of pleasure, of ever-new opportunities for satisfaction?

Surely it doesn't follow directly from psychological hedonism that we must turn ascetic? That would be

a strange claim indeed. Schopenhauer knows that he must complement this psychological hedonism

with a particular conception of happiness and satisfaction if his ethics is to hold together. To this end he

claims that 'alles Streben entspringt aus Mangel, aus Unzufriedenheit mit seinem Zustande, ist also

Leiden, so lange es nicht befriedigt ist: keine Befriedigung ist aber dauernd; vielmehr ist sie stets nur

der Anfangspunkt eines neuen Strebens.'97 Or again, a few pages further: 'Die Basis alles Wollens aber

ist Bedürftigkeit, Mangel, also Schmerz [...]'98

Since the will itself is the inner reality of all phenomena, and Schopenhauer has now traced the

being of the will to lack, suffering and pain, it is a simple step to conclude that 'alles Leben Leiden

ist.'99 Suffering and pain are the inner reality of our world, while satisfaction, pleasure and happiness

have only a shadow existence, offering temporary relief from more pressing forms of pain and

suffering.100 Schopenhauer puts the point in straightforward terms: 'Alle Befriedigung, oder was man

an agent's insight into this discrepancy is the very knowledge that can set her free from the will's striving.96 WWV, p.370.97 WWV, p.365.98 WWV, p.367.99 WWV, p.366.100Young, pp.137-139, notes that Schopenhauer does not hold to the 'negativity of happiness' in full generality, exempting,

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gemeinhin Glück nennt, ist eigentlich und wesentlich immer nur negativ und durchaus nie positiv. [...]

Denn Wunsch, d.h. Mangel, ist die vorgehende Bedingung jedes Genusses.'101

Combined with the above-described psychological hedonism, this negative conception of

happiness and satisfaction does indeed give us a rather pessimistic outlook. The motive force behind

action is always a striving for pleasure and satisfaction, but now we can add that what pleases us in the

satisfaction of desires is simply that we are temporarily free from striving, or at least that the intensity

of this striving temporarily wanes. We are, that is, striving for nothing else than to be free from this

very striving. This, in a nutshell, is the inner contradiction of the will, of which I shall have much more

to say in section 2.5. For the moment, however, the conclusion is that we are, in all our actions, moved

by a longing to be free from longing, i.e., free from motivation altogether, but that we are at the same

time moved to actions that cannot possibly result in such freedom. At best, they will provide a

temporary relief, after which the pain and suffering of unfulfilled longing closes in on us again.102 In the

following I will refer to this combination of psychological hedonism and a negative conception of

happiness/satisfaction as 'negative hedonism,' or simply, 'Schopenhauer's conception of desire.'

So much for Schopenhauer's broad account of motivation. We want now to see whether and

how morality enters the picture.

for instance, the pleasures of smell and intellect, and, more generally, 'gratification which comes to us originally and of itself.' However, as Young also goes on to note, these are pleasures with respect to which the experiencer is generally passive. The pleasures that act as motive force for actions, i.e., the 'satisfactions' that result at least in part from the agent's own efforts do seem to generally fall under the 'negativity of happiness' thesis, for Schopenhauer.

101WWV, p.376.102Note that boredom, the lack of any definite desires, does not, for Schopenhauer, amount to an absence of the will's

insatiable longing. Indeed boredom threatens us like a terrible void, according to Schopenhauer, and this void would not be terrifying unless we still longed for satisfaction, which satisfaction a void of particular desires cannot offer even in temporary form. In The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, Bernard Reginster gives a helpful analysis of the distinction, for Schopenhauer, between happiness and boredom, in terms of second-order desires. I will not take up the matter, as it is rather peripheral to our concerns here. In brief, Reginster notes that boredom involves the strong (but indefinite) second-order desire for first-order (i.e. definite) desires, whereas happiness involves, or follows upon, the satisfaction of (first-order) desires, and lasts so long as no (first- or second-order) desires take the place of those just satisfied. Or to put the distinction in terms of our discussion here, boredom involves a strong longing for satisfaction that has not quite fixed on any particular objects and thus not formed any particular desires, whereas lasting peace and contentment consist in the absence of such longing altogether. (See Reginster, B. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2006, pp.120-130.)

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2.4.3 Compassion and primal unity: moral fact and metaphysical interpretation

In §1 of On the Basis of Morality (BM), Schopenhauer distinguishes the 'synthetic' from the

'analytic' approach to ethics. He is writing here in response to a prize essay question set by the Danish

Royal Academy, asking whether moral philosophy has its source and foundation in moral ideas

immediately contained in consciousness (or conscience: conscientia), or in another principle of

cognition. Schopenhauer describes the synthetic and analytic approaches as follows, noting that the

essay question forces him to take the analytic approach.

Von einer gegebenen und als wahr angenommenen Metaphysik aus, würde man auf synthetischem Wege zum Fundament der Ethik gelangen; wodurch dieses selbst von unten aufgebaut sein würde, folglich die Ethik fest gestützt aufträte. Hingegen bei der durch die Aufgabe nothwendig gemachten Sonderung der Ethik von aller Metaphysik, bleibt nichts übrig, als das analytische Verfahren, welches von Thatsachen, entweder der äußeren Erfahrung, oder des Bewusstseyns ausgeht.

In WWV Book 4, Schopenhauer follows the synthetic method. The first three books have

established the metaphysical framework necessary for the synthetic presentation of his ethics. The

elements of his metaphysics most crucial for this presentation are, of course, the explanation of the

inner reality of the world as will, and the claim that in-itself this will is a 'primal unity,' i.e., the same

will manifested in all phenomena. In the previous subsection, we started to look at Schopenhauer's

synthetic approach, by laying out his account of motivation. In this subsection, I intend first to take a

quick look at the analytic approach in Schopenhauer's BM essay, before returning to WWV.

Regardless of the method of presentation, Schopenhauer insists that ethics cannot be a science

of what ought to be, which only makes sense in a theological context, but must determine rather

whether there are actions of genuine moral worth, and if so, how they are possible. The task is to

explain how we can be motivated to act contrary to our seemingly so dominant egoistic drives;

Schopenhauer mocks the notion that abstract principles or 'constructions a priori' or an 'absolute

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lawgiving for all rational beings in abstracto' could ever overcome these drives.103 Such cobweb-

spinning is of value only in lecture halls; in the real world actions spring from 'der anschauunden

Erkenntniss,'104 i.e., from something actually felt, and therefore capable of moving us. (Despite his

protestations, Schopenhauer obviously thinks that the reader of WWV might well be moved by his

account of moral motivation and its metaphysical ground in the unity of will of which we are all

manifestations. We can only be so moved, however, insofar as Schopenhauer's words affect or arouse

our feelings, and not merely our capacity for logical or theoretical reasoning.)

Schopenhauer thinks that the moral fact, to be accepted as such in the analytic approach of BM,

is a more or less universally recognized one 'outside the lecture halls.' This fact is that those actions to

which we must ascribe genuine moral worth are none other than 'die Handlungen freiwilliger

Gerechtigkeit, reiner Menschenliebe und wirklichen Edelmuts.'105 The criterion of such actions is '[d]ie

Abwesenheit aller egoistischen Motivation.'106 To better clarify this absence of egoistic motivation,

Schopenhauer introduces a list of nine axioms, the third, fourth and fifth of which I quote here in part:

3. Was den Willen bewegt, ist allein Wohl und Wehe überhaupt und im weitesten Sinne des Worts genommen [...]4. Folglich bezieht jede Handlung sich auf ein für Wohl und Wehe empfängliches Wesen, als ihren letzten Zweck.5. Dieses Wesen ist entweder der Handelnde selbst, oder ein Anderer, welcher alsdannn bei der Handlung passiv beteiligt ist [...]107

On the basis of his nine axioms, Schopenhauer distinguishes 'überhaupt nur drei Grund-

Triebfedern der menschlichen Handlungen: und allein durch Erregen derselben wirken alle irgend

möglichen Motive.'108 These three fundamental drives are egoism (Egoismus), malice (Bosheit) and

compassion (Mitleid). Through the egoistic drive I will my own well-being (Wohl), through the

103See BM §14; also §13 and §19.104BM, p.246 (§19).105BM, p.195 (§13).106BM, p.204 (§15).107BM, pp.205-206 (§16).108BM, pp.209-210 (§16).

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malicious drive I will the pain (Wehe) of another, and through the compassionate drive I will the well-

being (Wohl) of another. For Schopenhauer, no one completely lacks any of these three drives, although

their relative strengths vary greatly from person to person.

Of course, we have to ask, in light of the Schopenhauerean account of motivation given in 2.3,

how the second and particularly the third of these drives are possible. For, in 2.3, I argued that, in

Schopenhauer's account, the individual is constituted precisely through the subordination of her

understanding and reason to the will, in the pursuit of satisfaction for her own desires, that is, of her

own well-being (ultimately amounting only to the temporary release from desire). Indeed, this is

correct insofar as we are talking about Schopenhauer's account of our motivation as individuals.

Schopenhauer describes compassion as rending the illusion of individuation. Through compassion, I

feel another person's suffering directly, Schopenhauer insisting that I feel it 'in him,' not in myself as

though I were mistaking it for my own suffering. Far from giving rise to such a mistake, compassion

rather opens our eyes to the illusoriness of individuation, at least partially tearing through the

appearance that I am entirely distinct from the person for whom I feel compassion. Compassion is the

recognition, if only 'intuitive,' that beneath my apparent individuality and that of the other for whom I

feel compassion, we are in fact the expression of one and the same will.109

Thus to the extent that I free myself from the illusion of individuation, to that extent I have

compassion for others, and to that extent I am motivated to act according to an entirely different

fundamental drive from that which governs the actions I undertake under the illusion of individuation.

When I act compassionately, my actions show that I draw less of a difference between myself and the

object of my compassion than in the more usual case of egoistic action.110 I show, that is, that I 'see

through' the principle of individuation.

109See BM §§19-22, in which Schopenhauer provides a brief 'metaphysical supplement' to his essay. I examine the more detailed WWV discussion of this point below.

110BM, p.265 (§22).

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Schopenhauer acknowledges, however, that the analytic approach taken in BM cannot truly

demonstrate that the perspective of the compassionate person is a valid or justified one. That

compassion is the fundamental drive which alone gives moral worth to our actions, this is indeed the

accepted fact and foundation on which ethics must be taken to rest. But only metaphysics can show us

whether this foundation is solid, that is, whether ethics is itself not entirely illusory. 111 In other words, to

justify the above statement, i.e., that in compassion we see through the illusion of individuation and

thereby glimpse a genuine underlying unity, we will have to return to the synthetic, or metaphysical,

approach of WWV.

First, I want to briefly draw attention to one last point of Schopenhauer's discussion in BM. We

might have thought that a certain harmony were possible between egoism and compassion. Could I not

share certain goals and activities with those close to me, such that my well-being and theirs are, at least

in many instances, intertwined, if not straightforwardly one and the same? Do we not, that is, share

happiness and well-being?

Schopenhauer's answer is no, or at least not so long as we act under the illusion of

individuation. For he insists in BM, as in WWV, that suffering and pain alone are positive phenomena,

while satisfaction, well-being and happiness are strictly negative. What I feel in compassion is another's

suffering, and we can share happiness only in an indirect, negative sense. To feel compassion is to

participate 'am Leiden eines Andern und dadurch an der Verhinderung oder Aufhebung dieses Leidens,

als worin zuletzt alle Befriedigung und Wohlseyn und Glück besteht.'112 Moreover, Schopenhauer

thinks that the motivation for any action aimed at relieving suffering must have as its goal either the

relief of my own suffering or that of another, not both at once. Or if it aims at both, then it is a kind of

'mixed action,' drawing on both the egoistic and compassionate drives, which themselves remain

distinct. Of course, to the extent we free ourselves from the illusion of individuation and express this

111See BM §22, especially pp.266ff; cf. also §17.112BM, p.208 (§16).

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through our actions, the distinction between my suffering and yours disappears, and to this extent we

can share happiness (through the relief from suffering). However, this sharing of happiness then rests,

not on any harmony between the egoistic and compassionate drives, but on the abolition of the

distinction on which the egoistic drive itself rests; hence the shared happiness rests, finally, on the

compassionate drive alone.

In any case, this strict separation of the egoistic and compassionate drives ultimately plays a

rather secondary role, as I will now try to explain, in the WWV synthetic presentation of resignation as

the highest ethical goal. As mentioned, here we have to return to the metaphysical framework

Schopenhauer has developed in the first three books of WWV, in order to explain compassion. The

question is whether what we feel in compassion, namely that beneath the outward appearance of

individuality we share a deeper unity, is truly grounded in reality, and if so, how to express this felt

truth in the 'conceptual clarity' of philosophy.

Naturally, it is through the underlying, or 'primal,' unity of the will, as established in Book 2 of

WWV and discussed in section 2.3 above, that Schopenhauer justifies the perspective of the

compassionate person. The identification with another that we feel so powerfully in compassion is,

given this underlying unity, no illusion, but rather a deep insight into the inner nature of the world.

From the metaphysical perspective that Schopenhauer has established in WWV, we can confirm that

compassion is indeed itself the lifting of an illusion. The 'veil of maya' is rent, and we grasp the irreality

of our existence as individuals.

It is important to note the 'practical' nature of Schopenhauer's claim that the 'principium

individuationis' is an illusion. This claim cannot consist simply in the fundamental theoretical insight of

transcendental idealism, namely that objects of experience conform to our understanding and forms of

intuition, and are thus appearance, in contrast to the thing-in-itself. This theoretical point is no illusion.

Schopenhauer insists that we must recognize, with Kant, that our theoretical cognition is of objects as

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appearances, and that this restriction to appearances is of the very nature of cognition itself. There is

absolutely no illusion in the fact that we can only know objects as they appear to us. Rather, once we

have understood this basic standpoint of transcendental idealism, we are freed from a stubborn

theoretical illusion, namely that we can ever have theoretical knowledge of things-in-themselves.

By contrast, the illusion we suffer under the principium individuationis comes from the fact that

the will-in-itself, with the full force of its insatiable striving and demand for satisfaction, makes itself

felt in every single one of its individual manifestations. This is 'der Ausdruck des Widerspruchs, mit

welchem der Wille zum Leben im innern behaftet ist,'113 Schopenhauer's metaphysically inflected

version of Hobbes' bellum omnium contra omnes. Under the sway of this illusion, we each imagine that

the satisfaction of our own individual desires is of ultimate value; the will-in-itself longs with the full

force of its blind, aimless, purposeless striving, behind every individual's particular aims and goals. We

are inevitably disappointed whenever we achieve our definite aims and purposes, precisely because of

this monstrous discrepancy between the infinite longing that constitutes the underlying motive force of

the action, and the definite goal to which this longing is in each case limited.

When we see through the principium individuationis to this frightening truth about the nature of

our will, and grasp it 'in hohem Grade der Deutlichkeit,'114 it acts, Schopenhauer says, as a 'Quietiv alles

und jedes Wollens.'115 If we can see through the illusion that makes us believe satisfying our individual

desires is ultimately what we will, this insight will sap our motivation to pursue such satisfaction. The

highest ethical goal, the resignation achieved by saints, is possible only through the quieting effect of

such insight and knowledge.116 Thus I agree with Young117 that Schopenhauer gives a refutation

specifically of 'practical egoism' and that 'the grounds for pessimism reside [...] in variance between

113WWV, p.393.114WWV, p.447.115WWV, p.453.116WWV, p.468-470.117Young, p.64.

123

individuals.'118 But, unlike Young, I don't think this point can be easily disentangled from

Schopenhauer's notion of the will-in-itself as blind striving, i.e., as divorced from cognition. I certainly

agree with Young that such a notion is in tension with other central elements of Schopenhauer's

philosophy, but, as I will make clear in the remainder of this chapter, I think that the tension runs very

deep in Schopenhauer's moral philosophy, and that the separation of the will's blind striving from

cognition is essential for Schopenhauer's justification of renunciation as ethical ideal.

We have now related the compassion that underlies all morally worthy actions to

Schopenhauer's ethical ideal of the will's self-denial, or 'resignation,' through the formula:

'Durchschauen des principii individuationis.'119 Compassion is a general intuitive grasp of the

illusoriness of individuation; in a 'high degree of clarity,' this intuitive knowledge is a quietive of the

will, leading to complete resignation, i.e., to renunciation of the will. We might, however, pause to ask

how much work the notion of compassion is actually doing here, in moving us towards the ideal of

resignation.

For one thing, we might note that insight into the true nature of the will, that is, the seeing-

through of the principium individuationis ('PI' in the following), insofar as it lifts the illusion that my

individual aims and objects of desire are what I really will – this insight does not seem to depend on my

being particularly compassionate. Granted, the dependence is there if we accept the formulaic summary

of our discussion thus far: compassion = seeing through the illusion of the PI = quietive of the will

(with the middle term moving from less to more clearly grasped, but always intuitive, knowledge120 as

we move from left to right). However, when we consider carefully what each of the identities means, it

is less clear that the kind of seeing-through that is really compassionate, in any ordinary sense of the

word, is essential to quieting the will.

118Young, p.75.119WWV, p.447; similar or identical formulations at p.418, p.449, p.464.120It's interesting to note here that Schopenhauer allows for, indeed requires, differing degrees of clarity within intuitive

knowledge itself.

124

Let's take a more detailed look at the place Schopenhauer gives to compassion in WWV. His

first extended discussion of compassion begins on p.453 and covers much the same ground we saw in

BM. Compassion is the actual source of motivation in all morally worthy actions, it alone can overcome

the egoistic drive, and it consists in an intuitive grasp of the illusoriness of the PI. Schopenhauer then

considers what will happen if this intuitive seeing-through of the PI is 'in hohem Grade der Deutlichkeit

vorhanden.'121 When this 'veil of maya' has become so transparent to someone that he no longer makes

'den egoistischen Unterschied zwischen seiner Person und der fremden,' then he also no longer makes

any difference between his own suffering and that of others, and sees as his own the suffering that is the

inner reality of all phenomena; he must 'den Schmerz der ganzen Welt sich zueignen.'122 He no longer

has before him his own alternating pain and well-being, but rather he 'erkennt das Ganze, fasst das

Wesen desselben auf, und findet es in einem steten Vergehn, nichtigem Streben, innerm Widerstreit,

und beständigem Leiden begriffen, sieht, wohin er blickt, die leidende Menschheit und die leidende

Thierheit, und eine hinschwindende Welt.'123 With such knowledge, how could he possibly,

Schopenhauer asks, 'dieses Leben durch stete Willensakte bejahen und eben dadurch sich ihm immer

fester verknüpfen, es immer fester an sich drücken?'124

The great framing question of WWV Book 4 is whether, faced with the knowledge of this

innermost nature of the will, its insatiable and purposeless striving, we can better achieve redemption

and freedom through a clear-eyed affirmation of the will, or through its complete renunciation and

negation. In the passage just quoted, Schopenhauer arrives at his answer in dramatic fashion. But notice

how far, in the course of a one-and-a-half-page passage, he has moved from a fairly intuitive

conception of compassion – identification with the suffering of another – to something far removed

from any common notion of it, to, namely, a longing to escape the cosmic suffering that underlies every

121WWV, p.447.122WWV, p.447.123WWV, p.448.124WWV, p.448.

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phenomenon in this world. I suggest, at the very least, that in securing the ideal of renunciation, the

great bulk of the work is done by Schopenhauer's conception of will and desire as endless suffering,

with compassion more or less brought along for the ride.

Or, to put it another way, we have on the one hand, compassion, and on the other, a clear grasp

of the world as endless and purposeless suffering; these two things, on the surface seemingly quite

different, Schopenhauer identifies, at least to the extent that each consists in knowledge of the

illusoriness of the PI, though at different degrees of clarity. Schopenhauer's identification, I suggest,

runs primarily in one direction. That is, Schopenhauer interprets compassion in such a way that it is

ultimately no more than a window for looking into the endless suffering that constitutes the in-itself of

the world. At a 'high degree of clarity,' the insight in question no longer motivates us to do anything for

other individuals whom we perceive as suffering. Granted, Schopenhauer argues that we can redeem

them and ourselves only through the complete renunciation of the will in ourselves. But this claim is

grounded entirely on his conception of will and desire and takes us far away from anything we would

normally recognize as compassion. (In section 2.5, I'll note that Nietzsche traces Schopenhauer's

pessimism back to this 'sick' or 'diseased' conception of desire and will. I want to stress already here the

difference between this Nietzschean criticism, targeting the conception of desire at play in

Schopenhauer's philosophy, and the kind of criticism that takes Schopenhauer's pessimism to be 'a

matter, ultimately, rooted in nothing more than individual temperament [...] as of interest only as the

manifestation of a diseased personality.'125 Schopenhauer's philosophical conception of desire and will

may or may not be grounded in his individual temperament; Nietzsche, in any case, aims his

philosophical criticism squarely at the former.)

Indeed, we can recall from section 2.3 that, before we had even addressed compassion at all, we

could already see, from Schopenhauer's conception of the individual agent, that redemption and

125Young, p.136.

126

freedom must consist, for Schopenhauer, in the liberation of the knowing subject from subjection to the

will. The ideal of renunciation, we can now see, is grounded primarily, if not entirely, on

Schopenhauer's conception of agency, and of will and desire in particular. As explained earlier, his

conception of desire consists in the combination of psychological hedonism with a negative conception

of happiness/satisfaction. When acting under the illusion of the PI, we necessarily act on desires that fit

this conception. We long to satisfy such desires so long as they are unfulfilled, because to have

unfulfilled desires is to suffer, but when we do satisfy them, we discover that this satisfaction is not

what we truly desired. At bottom, we will to no longer will at all.

This naturally brings us to the following question: if the ideal of renunciation rests ultimately on

Schopenhauer's conception of desire, what justifies this conception? From whose perspective is this

innermost nature of will and desire grasped? Put another way, who is it that possesses insight into the

illusoriness of individuation 'in a high degree of clarity'? And closely related, but perhaps not quite the

same question, who is set free by this liberating insight? Schopenhauer's answer to each of these

questions is: the 'pure knowing subject.'

The 'pure knowing subject' is the knowing subject set free from the will, and thus presupposes

the dissolution of that 'miracle par excellence,' i.e., of the individual as unity of knowing subject and

willing subject. Since so much rests on this pure knowing subject, and its perspective on the true inner

nature of desire and will, we will have to examine it in some detail below, in section 2.5. However, first

the time has finally come to address, in light now of Schopenhauer's own ethics, his charge that Kant

succumbs to eudaemonism.

2.4.4 Schopenhauer's 'cosmic eudaemonism'

Schopenhauer, as we saw at the beginning of this section, accuses Kant of smuggling

eudaemonism into ethics through the highest good's reconciliation of virtue and happiness. Given

Schopenhauer's insistence that ethics be kept 'pure' of eudaemonism, the axioms quoted above from

127

BM might strike us as somewhat odd. Schopenhauer affirms in axiom 3, in particular, that the will is

moved solely by pleasure, or well-being, and pain (Wohl und Wehe). Indeed, of the two, only pain is

real, so that the will is moved always by pain, usually moving the agent to relieve her own suffering

(egoism), though in extreme cases moving the agent to cause suffering in another or others (malice),126

and finally, in morally worthy actions, moving the agent to relieve the suffering of another or others.

Clearly, if we take eudaemonism to mean the pursuit of pleasure, well-being, happiness and the

avoidance of pain and suffering, Schopenhauer's philosophy is emphatically eudaemonistic. (This is

indeed how Schopenhauer uses the term, where the pursuit in question is under the illusion of

individuation. Again, this is a particularly narrow understanding of 'eudaemonism,' especially in

relation to ancient ethical theories. While 'hedonism' might be more appropriate here, I will use

'eudaemonism' in Schopenhauer's sense, since it is the term he himself turns against Kant.) The form in

which eudaemonism appears in Schopenhauer's philosophy is tied to his conception of the causal

determinism governing the phenomenal realm. As noted earlier, the 'glue of necessity,' the binding force

that ties an effect to its cause, is identified by Schopenhauer with the blind striving of will. Once we

reach this insight in our own case, through the inner perspective on causality given in motivation, and

grasp the primal unity of the world's inner reality, we can generalize to all phenomena.127 Throughout

the whole world of appearances, from manifestations of the law of gravity to the actions of human

beings, the same blind striving binds causes to their effects.128 In this empirical world, determinism is

absolute: 'Das Gesetz der Motivation ist eben so streng, wie das der physischen Kausalität, führt also

einen eben so widerstehlichen Zwang mit sich.'129

126I did not address malice above, as it is not especially relevant to our line of thought here. Schopenhauer explains it as the (misguided and necessarily failing) attempt to relieve one's own suffering by witnessing the suffering of another (by first causing it oneself), and to this extent he tries to assimilate malice to egoism. See BM §§16-17.

127See Young, Chapters V and VI, for an extended and insightful discussion of this generalization, and related difficulties and possible qualifications. Addressing these issues in any detail here would involve a distracting digression.

128See, e.g., WWV, pp.194-196 and pp.364-366.129BM, p.222 (§17).

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The absoluteness of this determinism is therefore one with the ultimate identity of the

underlying motive force, the protean character of the will, that in response to the endless variety of

causes (including motives, in the sense of agents' adopted 'motives of choice') brings about the equally

endless variety of effects (including actions), but always through the same basic motive force – blind,

purposeless striving: 'Das Motiv überhaupt steht vor dem Willen als vielgestaltiger Proteus: es

verspricht stets völlige Befriedigung, Löschung des Willendursts.'130 But the longed-for satisfaction is

never reached. In the following, I'll call this doctrine of identity of underlying motive force, as a blind

striving for satisfaction and release from suffering that constitutes the glue of necessity behind all

causal phenomena, Schopenhauer's 'cosmic eudaemonism.' (As noted earlier, 'hedonism' is perhaps a

more accurate term for what Schopenhauer means by 'eudaemonism,' but I want to stick with

Schopenhauer's own terminology here.)

This tie between absolute determinism and cosmic eudaemonism gives us a new perspective on

Schopenhauer's rejection of Kant's noumenal self. Earlier we looked at Schopenhauer's theoretical

critique of the noumenal self. The supposed independence of Kant's noumenal self, i.e., from any

relation to an object, violated, for Schopenhauer, the very essence of idealism, namely the mutual

conditioning of subject and object. In chapter 1, we saw that one of the most important features tied to

the noumenal self, as presented in Kant's detailed examples of moral action (the gallows example in

particular), is that the individual as noumenal self is raised above the eudaemonistic perspective from

which the will is moved solely by pleasure and pain. The feeling of respect for the moral law, in

particular, involves, for Kant, a source of motivation independent of such eudaemonistic calculation,

since by its very nature this source of motivation causes both pain, in the humiliation of the

inclinations, and pleasure, in the object or action to which the will is determined (as also a virtuous

'contentment with oneself' analogous to happiness). Moreover, both the pain and pleasure are here

130WWV, p.386.

129

merely secondary phenomena in the determination of the will; pain and pleasure are not, in such

Kantian examples, that which moves the will. But this, we can now say, is just another way, on

Schopenhauer's view, of claiming that the determinism governing our actions can be violated.

But, given Schopenhauer's own cosmic eudaemonism, what now stands behind the charge of

eudaemonism he throws at Kant? The charge rests on Kant's reconciliation of virtue and happiness in

the individual. For Schopenhauer, that which distinguishes compassion as a fundamental drive opposed

to egoism is not that it is moved by something other than pleasure and pain, but that it breaks free from

the PI. Indeed, even the peace (Friede), calm (Ruhe) and cheerfulness (Heiterkeit)131 that can be

attained in complete renunciation of the will, and enjoyed by the subject in a state of 'pure knowing,' do

not break free from eudaemonistic calculation. This peace, calm and cheerfulness are precisely the

happiness sought all along by the individual, the pursuit of which was however futile as individual, i.e.,

under the illusion of individuation. This happiness can never be attained by the individual, since the

liberation of the knowing subject from the will is at the same time the end of the individual (i.e., the

end of acting under the illusions of individuation), as noted already in section 2.3. Schopenhauer can

therefore rightly claim that he does not reconcile virtue and happiness in the individual. He notes,

taking a shot at Kant's postulate of immortality, that his doctrine of a pure knowing subject, 'the eternal

world-eye,' offers no hope to the individual as such: 'Daher kann der Egoismus des Individuums (dieser

einzelnen vom Subjekt des Erkennens beleuchteten Willenserscheinung) für seinen Wunsch, sich

unendliche Zeit hindurch zu behaupten, aus unserer dargelegten so wenig Nahrung und Trost schöpfen

[...],' the conclusion of the passage being, naturally, that the individual receives no hope at all of eternal

life, a postulate necessary, according to Kant, for the highest good.

Thus we have, on the one hand, Schopenhauer's cosmic eudaemonism, grounded in, or as

suggested above, identical with his consistent thoroughgoing determinism in the phenomenal world, in

131WWV, p.486.

130

which are located the particular desires of individuals, and, on the other hand, Kant's noumenal self and

feeling of respect, breaking free from eudaemonistic calculation, but also tied to an ambiguous, if not

inconsistent, conception of the inclinations and, therefore, of freedom too. Schopenhauer's cosmic

eudaemonism is one possible resolution of our Coordination Problem of chapter 1. We have seen that

the cost of this resolution is fairly steep in terms of what it jettisons of Kant's moral philosophy.

What we have yet to evaluate is how successfully Schopenhauer justifies his all-important

conception of desire, through the perspective of the pure knowing subject. Nietzsche puts his critical

finger on just this point in Schopenhauer's philosophy. The following section draws out this critique,

from the somewhat scattered passages Nietzsche devotes to it. I will conclude that we have good reason

to be sceptical of Schopenhauer's claims involving the pure knowing subject, and so good reason also

to consider alternative ways of resolving our chapter 1 Coordination Problem.

2.5 Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer: eudaemonism and illness

Here are two passages from the opening chapter of JGB, 'Von den Vorurtheilen der

Philosophen':

Es giebt immer noch harmlose Selbst-Beobachter, welche glauben, dass es 'unmittelbare Gewissheiten' gebe […] wie es der Aberglaube Schopenhauers war, 'ich will': gleichsam als ob hier das Erkennen rein und nackt seinen Gegenstand zu fassen bekäme, als 'Ding an sich', und weder von Seiten des Subjekts, noch von Seiten des Objekts eine Fälschung stattfände [...]'132

Die Philosophen pflegen vom Willen zu reden, wie als ob er die bekannteste Sache der Welt sei; ja Schopenhauer gab zu verstehen, der Wille allein sei uns eigentlich bekannt, ganz und gar bekannt, ohne Abzug und Zuthat bekannt. Aber […] in jedem Willensakte giebt es einen commandirenden Gedanken; – und man soll nicht glauben, diesen Gedanken von dem 'Wollen' abscheiden zu können, wie als ob dann noch Wille übrig bliebe! [...]133

Nietzsche nowhere gives the kind of point-by-point, traditional philosophical criticism of

132JGB §16.133JGB §19.

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Schopenhauer that Schopenhauer himself gives of Kant. In looking at Schopenhauer's conception of

desire and of 'pure knowing subject' in this section, I take my lead from the above two passages. Once I

have developed the main points of criticism, I note that these are confirmed by, and resonate with, more

specific charges Nietzsche levels at Schopenhauer's philosophy in various further passages.

I'll highlight two points from the above passages, in order to frame this section. First, Nietzsche

raises doubts about 'unmittelbare Gewissheiten.' Schopenhauer himself often pairs 'unmittelbare' with

'Erkenntniss,' as a synonym for 'intuitiv.'134 One question we might ask here is how Schopenhauer can

bring 'immediate, intuitive knowledge' to clear philosophical expression without losing the immediacy

at issue. More specifically, we might ask how what is felt as immediate knowledge (by the willing

subject) is translated into knowledge for the knowing subject. Is the resulting knowledge on the part of

the knowing subject self-knowledge?135 In particular, is the 'quietive' of the will – i.e., clear insight into

blind, purposeless striving behind all phenomena – self-knowledge? Wouldn't this be awfully complex,

by way of self-knowledge, on the part of what is supposed to be a blind, purposeless, and aimless will?

And if it is self-knowledge, then is the will really purposeless? Does it not grasp its purpose precisely

in resignation? A gloomy and pessimistic purpose, but a purpose nonetheless? Indeed an ultimate and

all-redeeming purpose, for all its gloom and pessimism? Would the peace, calm and cheerfulness of the

pure knowing subject not also be something willed?

The fundamental problem here is that the pure knowing subject is an ideal precisely because it

is liberated from the will as 'das willensreine, ewige Subjekt des Erkennens,'136 while at the same time it

is the perspective of the will's 'vollen Selbsterkenntnis.'137 Put another way, in the very moment when

134E.g., WWV, p.466 speaks of the 'intuitiven und unmittelbaren Erkenntniss,' in reference specifically to the clear grasp of the illusoriness of PI.

135In VW §42, Schopenhauer expressly denies that the subject of knowing can ever be known. This is hardly the final word, however, as we'll see in detail over the next several pages.

136WWV, p.461; see p.219 for a similar description of the knowing subject in the context of aesthetic perception and experience.

137WWV, p.486.

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the will achieves this self-knowledge, 'nur die Erkenntniss ist geblieben, der Wille ist verschwunden.'138

Though, again, Schopenhauer insists, 'die Welt ist die Selbsterkenntnis des Willens.'139

The second point worth noting, in the above Nietzsche passages, is the claim that if you sever

the 'commanding thought' from the will, there's no will left at all. Essentially, this raises from a

different angle the same difficulties for Schopenhauer noted in the previous paragraph. If the will is in-

itself nothing but a blind, purposeless striving, how is knowledge of it, such as the pure knowing

subject has, not external knowledge, i.e., an interpretation of this purposeless longing, and in this sense

merely one more manifestation of the will's protean nature? If the will is nothing more than insatiable

and purposeless striving, then it has no 'secret, inner' purpose, no innermost goal of self-annihilation. In

that case, the longing for annihilation, and for liberation from servitude to the will, comes from outside

the will, i.e., from the pure, will-less, knowing subject. The will cannot see its own suffering as a

reason for resignation, because the will is irrational and blind. If the source of motivation underlying

resignation does not come from the will, but rather from the pure knowing subject, this raises serious

questions for the Schopenhauerean account of motivation laid out above.

In other words, if we accept Schopenhauer's characterization of the will-in-itself as a blind,

insatiable, purposeless and aimless striving, then some interpretation of what this striving wants is

necessary to give it any direction at all, even that of turning on itself in self-negation. The importance

of this point is perhaps not immediately obvious. For Schopenhauer himself insists, as we saw above,

that the will-in-itself always requires a definite form, as some particular motive, in order to move an

agent to act. However, we need to recall that throughout Schopenhauer's account of motivation, he

assumes that it is the brute, purposeless striving, the will-in-itself that is the underlying motive force in

desire, while the particular aim or purpose that gives this force direction is nothing but an illusory outer

shell. The intelligibility of such a brute, purposeless motive force is assumed throughout by

138WWV, p.486.139WWV, p.485.

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Schopenhauer, and is to be finally redeemed through the philosophical explanation of the perspective of

the pure knowing subject, who grasps the true character of the will by seeing through the illusion of the

PI and thereby frees itself from the will, in particular, from the will's insatiable and aimless striving.

But now we can't seem to decide whether this knowledge attained by the pure knowing subject

is grounded in a perspective that is absolutely 'willensrein' or whether it is in fact the most penetrating

self-knowledge of the will. Schopenhauer's favourite metaphor for characterizing the knowledge in

question is that of a mirror, and he plays it to ambiguous effect. He speaks, for instance, of '[d]er Wille,

dessen Spiegel das Leben ist, und das willensfreie Erkennen, das in jenem Spiegel ihn deutlich erblickt

[...]'140 Certainly, if the knowing is 'free of will,' it would seem that we are not talking about the will's

self-knowledge, though there is a touch of ambiguity added by the fact that what the knowing

(Erkennen) here knows is given as a reflection in life as mirror of the will. In other cases, it is the pure

knowing that is itself the mirror: an ascetic who has conquered his desires and completely renounced

the will, 'ist nur noch als rein erkennendes Wesen, als ungetrübter Spiegel der Welt übrig.' 141 But as

noted above, Schopenhauer also calls the world the self-knowledge of the will, and on the closing

pages of Book 4, he says that it is 'der Wille, zur vollen Selbsterkenntnis gelangt' that freely negates

itself.142

The problem is serious because Schopenhauer needs the pure knowing subject to be

independent and free of will, 'willensrein,' if he is to justify his claim that the will-in-itself is a brute,

purposeless, blind striving that constitutes the motive force underlying all desires. If the pure knowing

subject is itself a manifestation of will, merely another of the will's endless protean forms, then it

cannot provide a perspective from which we might glimpse this blind striving 'in-itself,' i.e., from

which we can make intelligible the isolation of this blind striving as the underlying motive force in all

140WWV, p.328.141WWV, p.462; similarly p.219.142WWV, p.486.

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particular desires. In the absence of any such perspective, it would be just as plausible to say that the

particular aim, the definite goal that gives direction to the will is in each case the motive force of desire

and action, i.e., we might deny the necessary gulf Schopenhauer posits between the 'motive of choice'

and the motive force of an action, to borrow a distinction from chapter 1, between, that is, the reason

on which an agent acts and that which moves her to act. The isolation of the pure knowing subject from

the will is naturally only the flip side of the isolation of the will from the knowing subject. Thus

Schopenhauer needs the pure knowing subject to be 'willensfrei' if his account of motivation, founded

on the isolation of will as blind striving, is to hold together.

On the other hand, if the pure knowing subject is entirely free from will, how can Schopenhauer

claim that this subject has knowledge of the will's innermost 'Widerspruch' and 'Widerstreit'? If the pure

subject of knowledge is entirely free from the will, then its knowledge of the will, which is supposed to

be the ultimate quietive of the will, does not belong to the will, as inner contradiction. There is then no

contradiction in the will's blind striving; in itself, it's purposeless and thus incapable of acting, or

motivating to action, in a way contrary to its own (non-existent) purpose. The negation of the will, and

moreover the great value placed on release from the will, on peace and cheerful repose, is then

grounded in the perspective of the supposedly pure knowing subject itself. But for Schopenhauer every

valuation is necessarily grounded in 'desiring will': he insists that 'jedes Gute' is 'wesentlich relativ:

denn es hat sein Wesen nur in seinem Verhältniss zu einem begehrendem Willen.'143 So valuing the state

of pure will-less knowing as good, indeed as the state of redemption itself, must rest on 'desiring will.'

If the state, even taken merely as an ideal, is, or would be, experienced as lasting peace and

contentment, then this experience, and the positive valuation that it obviously contains, rests on

desiring will, is 'relative to' desiring will. In what sense then, is the pure knowing subject entirely 'will-

less'? Note how Schopenhauer continues the paragraph whose first sentence I just quoted:

143WWV, p.427.

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Absolutes Gut ist demnach ein Widerspruch: höchstes Gut, summum bonum, bedeutet dasselbe, nämlich eigentlich eine finale Befriedigung des Willens, nach welcher kein neues Wollen einträte, ein letztes Motiv, dessen Erreichung ein unzerstörbares Genügen des Willens gäbe. Nach unsrer bisherigen Betrachtung in diesem vierten Buch ist dergleichen nicht denkbar. Der Wille kann so wenig durch irgend eine Befriedigung aufhören stets wieder von Neuem zu wollen, als die Zeit enden oder anfangen kann: eine dauernde, sein Streben vollständig und auf immer befriedigende Erfüllung giebt es für ihn nicht. [...] Wenn es indessen beliebt, um einem alten Ausdruck [...] ein Ehrenamt zu geben; so mag man, tropischer Weise und bildlich, die gänzlich Selbstaufhebung und Verneinung des Willens, die wahre Willenslosigkeit, als welche allein den Willensdrang für immer stillt und beschwichtigt, allein jene Zufriedenheit giebt, die nicht wieder gestört werden kann, allein welterlösend ist [...] -- das absolute Gut, das summum bonum nennen, und sie ansehn als das einzige radikale Heilsmittel der Krankheit, gegen welche alle andern Güter, nämlich alle erfüllten Wünsche und alles erlangte Glück, nur Palliativmittel, nur Anodyna sind.144

Clearly, however 'bildlich' we take this use of 'absolute good,' it's goodness is relative precisely

to the will's inner longing for contentment, for release from the pain and pressure of willing itself. That

which is merely palliative, i.e., 'satisfied wishes' and (temporarily) 'attained happiness,' in comparison

with this absolute good, consists rather in the satisfaction of the will's particular empirical

manifestations, that is, of desires expressed under the PI. The absolute good is, strictly speaking, no

good relative to the these particular desires of individuals; it does not satisfy any such particular

manifestations of will. The absolute good Schopenhauer describes is good only relative to the will-in-

itself, as distinct from any and all of its particular manifestations.145 Thus Schopenhauer denies, as we

saw in the previous section, that lasting happiness can ever come to the individual acting as such, and

sees Kant's reconciliation of individual happiness and virtue as a 'sham.'

So far, then, it seems fair for Schopenhauer to claim that the pure knowing subject sees through

the PI. But can he claim that this subject is will-less? If the state of the pure knowing subject is

144WWV, pp.427-428.145Although Young argues that we should not take, as Schopenhauer's considered view, the severing of the cognitive and

conative implied by my talk of the will-in-itself here, he makes a similar point about the ultimate ground of valuation in Schopenhauer's ethics. He suggests, in particular, that 'the altruist acts in the interest of a higher, transcendental self' (p.107), and that 'morality is a sublime form of selfishness, the latter [i.e., selfishness] being the paradigm of practical rationality' (p.121).

136

(however ideally) experienced as Schopenhauer describes, that is, as lasting peace and contentment, as

world-redeeming, in a word, as good, then, by Schopenhauer's very definition of 'good,' it must be so

experienced relative to desiring will. Thus it is considerably more difficult to grant Schopenhauer that

the pure knowing subject is liberated and redeemed from the will, and in a state of complete will-

lessness.

Let's consider one escape from this difficulty that may seem to present itself here. What seems

to need sorting out is the 'innermost relation' of knowing to willing, since, as Schopenhauer notes, this

relation is the ultimate source of redemption and freedom through negation of the will: 'so ist auch jene

Verneinung alles Wollens, jener Eintritt in die Freiheit, nicht durch Vorsatz zu erzwingen, sondern geht

aus dem innersten Verhältniss des Erkennens zum Wollen im Menschen hervor, kommt daher plötzlich

und wie von Aussen angeflogen.'146

The passage is not an easy one to interpret, in light of our discussion thus far. Even as he notes

the importance of this 'innermost relation,' Schopenhauer's phrasing reinforces the ambiguity of the

relation. For instance, to what 'inside' does the 'outside' in the sentence just quoted refer? The negation

of the will comes from the innermost relation of knowing to willing 'as though flying in from without.'

But, as we saw in detail above, the individual is, for Schopenhauer, the unity of knowing and willing.

What could lie outside of this relation? A passage briefly preceding that just quoted suggests that it is

from without the will that freedom flies in, from a 'change in the way of knowing,' as opposed to

'immediately from the will.'147 However a further passage sandwiched between these two reaffirms that

it is through the will coming to knowledge of its own being in-itself that negation of the will, and thus

freedom, are attained.148 So we return again to the same problem and ambiguity: the ultimate quietive

146WWV, p.478.147WWV, p.477: 'der Zustand, in welchem der Charakter der Macht der Motive entzogen ist, nicht unmittelbar vom Willen

ausgeht, sondern von einer veränderten Erkenntnisweise.' (The change is, namely, that knowing is no longer 'trapped' by the PI.)

148WWV, p.478: 'Freiheit des Willens [...] tritt erst ein, wann der Wille, zur Erkenntniss seines Wesens an sich gelangt, aus dieser ein Quietiv erhält [...]'

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of the will, the key to redemption, is both the will's self-knowledge and knowledge belonging to the

will-less pure knowing subject.

Perhaps, though, Schopenhauer can have it both ways. Is it not possible both that the knowing

subject grasps the illusoriness of the PI, while still in some kind of unity with the will, i.e., with the

body, and that the pure knowing subject, completely free from will, also possesses this same insight? Is

there anything contradictory in supposing the same insight possible from each of these perspectives? If

not, then insight into the illusoriness of the PI, and thereby into the primal unity and inner contradiction

of the will-in-itself, would be both self-knowledge of the will and knowledge possessed by the will-less

pure knowing subject. After all, Schopenhauer himself notes that reaching this insight does not

immediately quiet the will once and for all. Rather, constantly reminding oneself of this insight,

particularly through self-mortification, or at least self-restraint, is necessary to reach the will-less state

of the pure knowing subject.149 It seems entirely in keeping with this account that the knowing subject

should first possess the 'quietive insight' while still tied to the will, and thus perhaps as the will's self-

knowledge, though it brings her eventually to a state of will-less knowing, set free from the will, yet

still possessing knowledge of the will's inner contradiction. Understanding the quietive insight in this

way, as an acquisition of knowledge that can only be fully secured through great effort and constant

reflection, might also clarify the ambiguity in many of the passages considered above. For the initial

insight would then be 'immediate,' in the sense that the inner contradiction and suffering of the will is

felt in one's own person, and not grasped merely theoretically or as accepted wisdom, for instance. At

the same time, securing this insight into the will's inner nature and bringing it to clarity require

continued reflection on its meaning – in particular, that pursuit of individual desires can never bring

lasting contentment – and practice in accordance with this. The quietive insight into the will's inner

nature is then both the immediate self-knowledge of the will and the gradually acquired steadfastness

149WWV, pp.462-464.

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of this knowledge possessed by the pure knowing subject free from will.

I am not sure that this suggestion ultimately holds together, that is, whether the quietive insight

in question can really be attributed to two different states of the knowing subject, in its relation to the

will. But, in any case, it's beside the main point here, which concerns the value of the knowledge in

question as quietive of the will. The importance of the quietive insight into the will's innermost being

consists precisely in the fact that it quiets the will, and this quieting or negating effect is valued as the

path to freedom and redemption. But who makes this value judgment? Where is it grounded? Is it

grounded in the secret inner longing of the will for its own annihilation? In the desire to be free from all

desire? But then the will has an inner aim and drive, and is thus not brute purposeless striving, however

tortured its ultimate purpose may seem. Moreover, the pure knowing subject, if truly free from will,

would no longer have any ground for making this value judgment, i.e., for valuing a state of complete

repose and will-lessness as the highest good. Or, if the pure knowing subject is indeed free from the

will's blind striving, yet still values a state of repose and will-lessness, then it must have some other

ground for its value judgment, and such a ground can only be found in 'desiring will,' by

Schopenhauer's own lights. Thus there would be introduced, through the pure knowing subject, a

desiring will distinct from the blind striving underlying the world as appearance. Here, Schopenhauer

cannot have it both ways, for either way his account of motivation and willing is in serious difficulty.

In the end, it seems clear, as Nietzsche pointedly notes,150 that Schopenhauer's pure knowing

subject, together with its sense of release and redemption from the will, can hardly lay claim to a

'disinterested' perspective. The supposedly will-less state of the pure knowing subject is valued above

all else in Schopenhauer's philosophy, and this valuation is relative precisely to desiring will, conceived

in terms of an inner contradiction, as a self-negating or nihilistic longing to be free from all longing.

The pure knowing subject may free itself from the illusion of the PI, but it does not free itself, or at

150GM III:6.

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least, it does not free the positive valuation of its state, from the will-in-itself. The passages in which

Schopenhauer speaks of the pure knowing subject as the will's fullest self-knowledge are therefore, in

this sense, an accurate reflection of this 'innermost relation' between knowing and willing.

This innermost relation, however, now raises again a fundamental question for Schopenhauer's

ethics: how do we know that the perspective of the pure knowing subject, insofar as it sees through the

PI, is not itself an illusion? I noted above that Schopenhauer himself asks the question in BM, where he

concludes that only metaphysics can ultimately justify the claim. We saw above, in section 2.3, that

Schopenhauer's metaphysical path to the will as thing-in-itself and primal unity depends crucially on

the heterogeneity of knowing and willing, such that the immediate modifications of will, i.e., feelings,

are 'toto genere' different from the relation of a knowing subject to its object. Schopenhauer's account

of motivation, in particular, the deception that always attends particular desires, depends on the

isolation of the will-in-itself as brute purposeless striving and on the corresponding isolation of the pure

knowing subject from the will. I acknowledged earlier that Schopenhauer in several places emphasizes

the miraculous and 'immediate' unity of knowing and willing and that Young, for one, gives a

convincing argument that Schopenhauer 'lands' in 'explicit contradiction'151 when he tries to entirely

sever the cognitive from the conative. However that may be, he undoubtedly needs their dissolubility

for his metaphysical account of redemption as liberation from the will and of the PI as illusory. Indeed,

if we were still in any doubt about it, Schopenhauer himself essentially acknowledges as much in a note

to the first section of WWV Book 4, saying, in reference to the heterogeneity of knowing and will,

'diese Duplicität unsres Wesens ruht nicht in einer für sich bestehenden Einheit.'152 My argument in this

section shows why it's not surprising that Schopenhauer felt himself compelled to withdraw, or at least

to cloud in further ambiguity, the 'miracle par excellence' that is the unity of knowing and willing

precisely at the outset of WWV Book 4, in which he aims to justify his account of salvation as the

151Young, p.105.152WWV, p.327, note.

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separation of pure knowing subject from will.

Nonetheless, the ambiguity in the innermost relation between knowing and willing runs

throughout Book 4 because, as I have argued here, while Schopenhauer's metaphysics rests on a

possible mutual isolation of pure knowing subject and will, the value judgment that makes of pure will-

less knowing the absolute good is grounded in the will, and moreover, in the will as disclosed by the

perspective of the pure knowing subject. If pure will-less knowing is a state of contentment and

redemption, that is because it is a state in which the value judgments of the will are still felt, even if we

assume that the will's striving is 'quieted.'

It's not the case, therefore, that the perspective of the pure knowing subject, supposedly free and

isolated from the will, can justify Schopenhauer's conception of an opposing and correspondingly

isolated will-in-itself, as brute purposeless striving underlying all our particular desires. It is rather the

case that this conception of will and desire, and the value judgments that it implies, ground the ascetic

ideal of negating the will, of the will's self-negation. That is, Schopenhauer's metaphysical conception

of will and desire, far from justifying an ethics of renunciation, is merely symptomatic: it articulates

how the ideal of renunciation necessarily conceives of desire.

Nietzsche makes precisely this point in Götzendämmerung (GD):

Eine Verurtheilung des Lebens von Seiten des Lebenden bleibt zuletzt nur noch das Symptom einer bestimmten Art von Leben: die Frage, ob mit Recht, ob mit Unrecht, ist gar nicht damit aufgeworfen. [...] Wenn wir von Werthen reden, reden wir unter der Inspiration, unter der Optik des Lebens: das Leben selbst zwingt uns Werthe anzusetzen, das Leben selbst werthet durch uns, wenn wir Werthe ansetzen [...] Moral, wie sie bisher verstanden worden ist – wie sie zuletzt noch von Schopenhauer formulirt wurde als 'Verneinung des Willens zum Leben' – ist der décadence-Instinkt selbst, der aus sich einen Imperativ macht: sie sagt: 'geh zu Grunde' sie ist das Urtheil Verurtheilter ...153

Schopenhauer's pure knowing subject is meant to give us a perspective liberated from all will

and all desire, a perspective from which we could know the inner nature of will, while this knowing

153GD, 'Moral als Widernatur' §5.

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itself remains free and pure of will. But every conception of will and desire carries with it value

judgments, because the very notion of something being good is 'relative to desiring will,' and desiring

will always posits its aim as good.154 If then, some perspective is meant to reveal the absolute, or

innermost, nature of the will, the being of the will-in-itself, this perspective thereby also posits an

absolute good, namely, the good that is 'relative' to this innermost nature of the will. As we saw above,

this is precisely what Schopenhauer's metaphysics describes, and he is even willing to keep, as

'emeritus' and in a 'bildlich' sense, the term 'absolute good' for the good corresponding to the innermost

nature of the will as a brute striving suffering from its own nature as striving. This 'absolute good' is

then, naturally, the self-negation of the will, through which it achieves its innermost longing for release

from itself. But then the pure knowing subject, insofar as it posits brute, suffering striving as the true

metaphysical nature of the will, thereby also affirms the value judgment tied to this will, i.e., that

annihilation of the will, release from the suffering of desire, is the highest good. If we recall, finally,

that all value judgments are grounded in desiring will, we must conclude that the pure knowing subject

is not really 'willensfrei,' for it makes a value judgment as to the absolute good precisely insofar as it

affirms a particular conception of desiring will.

Indeed, Nietzsche, sharing Schopenhauer's view that value judgments are always relative to

desiring will, makes a general principle of this point. That is, for Nietzsche, insofar as we affirm any

particular conception of desire, we thereby also represent, or better, express, desire and will. The very

notion of a will-less perspective on will and desire is incoherent, for Nietzsche. Any time we affirm

some conception of will and desire, and thereby affirm the value judgments corresponding to such will

and desire, we do so 'under the optics of life' and in doing so express our own value judgments and a

corresponding will: hence Nietzsche's diagnosis of Schopenhauer's philosophy as 'Pessimisten-Optik

und “böser Blick.”'155

154Again, see WWV, pp.427-428.155GD 'Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen,' §24.

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Of course, the will that expresses itself in affirming a particular conception of will and desire

does not always do so honestly or 'naively.' For instance, Schopenhauer presents his conception of will

as metaphysical truth, wanting to deny that such truth is itself grounded in, or relative to, any particular

expression of will. In religion and philosophy, it's often the case, Nietzsche argues,156 that what are at

least in part expressions of will and desire present themselves as 'objective' or 'disinterested' truths.

Hence Nietzsche's further diagnosis of Schopenhauer's philosophy:

Eine 'altruistiche' Moral [...] bleibt unter allen Umständen ein schlechtes Zeichen. [...] Statt naiv zu sagen: 'ich bin nichts mehr werth,' sagt die Moral Lüge im Munde des décadent: 'Nichts ist etwas werth, -- das Leben ist nichts werth' ... Ein solches Urtheil bleibt zuletzt eine grosse Gefahr, es wirkt ansteckend, -- auf dem ganzen morbiden Boden der Gesellschaft wuchert es bald zu tropischer Begriffs-Vegetation empor, bald als Religion (Christentum), bald als Philosophie (Schopenhauerei).157

Nietzsche's critique of Schopenhauer's moral philosophy is at bottom a charge that

Schopenhauer, whether he realized it or not, is disingenuous about the ground of his ideal of

renunciation. The fundamental issue is the 'Werth des “Unegoistischen”, der Mitleids-,

Selbstverleugnungs-, Selbstopferungs-Instinkte, welche gerade Schopenhauer so lange vergoldet,

vergöttlicht und verjenseitigt hat, bis sie ihm schliesslich als die “Werthe an sich” übrig blieben, auf

Grund deren er zum Leben, auch zu sich selbst, Nein sagte.'158 For Nietzsche, the self-renunciation

Schopenhauer praises is not justified by any metaphysical truth about the nature of will-in-itself. Rather

this ideal represents the instinct of pity,159 self-denial and self-sacrifice that projects its values onto the

156See, e.g., JGB §6.157GD 'Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen,' §35.158GM Preface §5. In 2.4.3 above, I noted that Schopenhauer's identification of compassion with quietive insight into the

will's inner suffering is one-sided, in the sense that it radically transforms the meaning of compassion, from its rough everyday meaning of feeling kindness for, and showing it to, others, to the distinctive Schopenhauerean meaning involving the recognition that I can only ultimately relieve suffering (mine and that of others) by renouncing the will as it appears in, and is felt through, my own body. Nietzsche's critique of 'Mitleid' (compassion or pity, literally 'suffering-with') should be read against the backdrop of this transformation, especially given that Nietzsche claims that his critique of Mitleid developed largely from reflection on Schopenhauer's philosophy. It's also worth noting, in this connection, that Nietzsche lists 'Mitgefühl' (compassion or sympathy; literally 'feeling-with') as one of the 'four virtues' in JGB §284.

159Unless otherwise specified, 'pity' translates 'Mitleid' in Nietzschean contexts, while 'compassion' translates the same German term in Schopenhauerean contexts. I think the inconsistency is justified given the exceedingly positive connotations with which Schopenhauer asks us to hear the term, and the generally negative ones with which Nietzsche does. Consistency here would distract and distort the intended meaning in one or the other of these contexts. See also the previous footnote.

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world, and 'beyond' the world. This takes the form, in Schopenhauer's hands, of a metaphysics of will

that is meant to justify self-negation as the highest ideal. Nietzsche says it is precisely against the

instinct at work here that he turned. He came to see it as sick, as 'die zurückblickende Müdigkeit [...]

die letzte Krankheit sich zärtlich und schwermüthig ankündigend: ich verstand die immer mehr um sich

greifende Mitleids-Moral, welche selbst die Philosophen ergriff und krank machte, als das

unheimlichste Symptom unsrer unheimlich gewordnen europäischen Cultur [...]'160

In other words, Nietzsche's critique aims to undermine any claim to a pure will-less perspective

on desire and, in so doing, shifts the perspective on moral philosophy's conception of will and desire

from that of disinterested truth and justification to that of health and sickness. As we will see in detail

in chapters 3 and 4, this is neither to affirm a thoroughgoing relativity of values nor to move to a

merely biological or physiological account of values. It may be helpful, however, to make a few

comments on these points as they arise specifically in the context of Nietzsche's critique of

Schopenhauer, before turning to Nietzsche's critique of morality more generally.

For Nietzsche, the notion that questions of morality can be approached from a purely objective

perspective depends on the 'pose' of 'man against world,' of 'man as the measure of things,' which he

rejects. Therefore, whenever questions regarding basic moral values are tackled, asking of the answers

given whether they are 'true' is nonsensical so long as this excludes an examination of the drives and

desires expressed in the answers, and of the 'health' of these drives and desires. In the case of

Schopenhauer's philosophy, this means asking what drives and desires underlie the perspective of the

pure knowing subject, for it is ultimately this perspective that grounds the ideal of Schopenhauer's

philosophy. Schopenhauer himself argues that this perspective is 'free from will,' so that its insight into

the inner reality of will is purely objective, i.e., not itself in any way the expression of desiring will. We

saw above, however, that it's the ideal of renunciation and the associated longing for peace and release

160GM Preface §5.

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from suffering that actually ground the insight of the pure knowing subject into the inner reality of

desiring will. Schopenhauer's conception of desire as a tortured striving to be rid of itself is itself the

expression of an ideal and an inner longing. (As noted already, this is not to make a merely personal

charge that Schopenhauer's ethics is based on an idiosyncratic or sick temperament, but rather to attack

the philosophical conception of desire, advanced by Schopenhauer, as sick.) Nietzsche argues,

reasonably I think, that this reflects negatively on the ideal of renunciation and resignation in question.

(It's strange, in a sense, that this never occurred to Schopenhauer, who himself criticizes

Kantian ethics for declaring how things 'ought to be,' rather than staying grounded in the empirical facts

of morality. Schopenhauer thinks Kant here remains stuck in theology, that is, dependent on the idea of

a God who can judge the world from without and issue commands from a perspective on moral right

and wrong that is independent of the empirical world and the expressions of desiring will therein. And

yet Schopenhauer himself grounds his ideal in the perspective of a pure knowing subject who is

supposed to be, in Schopenhauer's own words, 'nothing' from the perspective of the empirical world. It

would seem, then, that Schopenhauer remains tied to certain presuppositions about moral valuation – in

particular, the presupposition that the highest values are grounded in a perspective lying 'outside' the

world – although he has himself vigourously opposed the theological foundations on which such

presuppositions rest.)

To believe we have access, whether theologically or metaphysically, to a moral perspective that

lies beyond this world is, as Nietzsche sees it, to posit 'man as the measure of things.' His opposition to

'man as the measure of things' offers something of a twist on the positions often staked out on this

question. In particular, we might in the first instance think that the person who denies any perspective

beyond this world is the one who thereby posits the human being as the measure of things. We might

think, that is, that the alternative to positing an absolute perspective, belonging to God or in some other

way independent of the empirical world, is precisely to posit ourselves as the measure of things.

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Nietzsche, however, thinks this is a superficial, and mistaken, view of the matter. When we claim some

access to or insight into an absolute perspective independent of this world of experience, we are

precisely thereby raising our own human perspective to absolute status, though we might disguise the

fact through theological or metaphysical suppositions. I will return to this point in more detail in

sections 3.4 and 4.3 of chapters 3 and 4, respectively. For the moment, I want only to note that the

notion of 'man as the measure of things' is one which Nietzsche explicitly rejects:

[...] es erscheint uns heute selbst zum Lachen, wenn der Mensch in Anspruch nehmen wollte, Werthe zu erfinden, welche den Werth der wirklichen Welt überragen sollten, - gerade davon sind wir zurückgekommen als von einer ausschweifenden Verirrung der menschlichen Eitelkeit und Unvernunft, die lange nicht als solche erkannt worden ist. Sie hat ihren letzten Ausdruck im modernen Pessimismus gehabt, einen älteren, stärkeren in der Lehre des Buddha; aber auch das Christentum enthält sie, zweifelhafter freilich und zweideutiger, aber darum nicht weniger verführerisch. Die ganze Attitüde 'Mensch gegen Welt', der Mensch als 'Welt-verneinendes' Prinzip, der Mensch als Wertmaß der Dinge, als Welten-Richter, der zuletzt das Dasein selbst auf seine Wagschalen legt und zu leicht befindet – die ungeheuerliche Abgeschmacktheit dieser Attitüde ist uns als solche zum Bewusstsein gekommen und verleidet, - wir lachen schon wenn wir 'Mensch und Welt' nebeneinander gestellt finden, getrennt durch die sublime Anmaßung des Wörtchens 'und'!161

Although Nietzsche rejects the view of human being as the measure of things, it should also be

clear why he thinks questions of health, in a broad sense, cannot simply be ignored when we are

addressing fundamental questions of moral values. If we abandon the theological presupposition of a

foundational moral perspective lying outside the empirical world, then we have to acknowledge that

our moral perspectives always draw on this-worldly drives, desires, previous commitments to

principles, ideals, etc. Nietzsche argues, as I'll explain in detail in the next chapter, that all such drives

and desires have a long prehistory in our evolutionary past. This is not to say that we have to determine

the value or 'health' of these drives and desires from the perspective of our evolutionary history, but it

does mean that we need some insight into how these drives and desires tend to influence and guide our

161Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (FW), §346.

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commitments to moral values, if we are to properly understand just what we are expressing when we

articulate such commitments. Acquiring such insight means addressing questions of health and illness,

broadly speaking, in light, especially, of the tension apparent between many of our basic physiological

drives and the process of socialization (both individual and historical) through which we first acquire

(at least explicitly) a moral perspective.

One important normative claim of Nietzsche's philosophy is already clear, however, and follows

not from any particular analysis of our evolutionary past or of our social development, but simply from

his rejection of the theological, or 'other-worldly,' perspective. It is a basic presupposition of

Nietzsche's philosophy that we have no access to any other-worldly perspective on moral values. This

means that value judgments as to the value of life or the world as a whole are 'in-themselves nonsense'

and must be taken as symptoms, that is, as a reflection, not on the purported object of judgment (life or

world), but on the perspective from which the judgments are made. We have just considered this point

in relation to Schopenhauer in particular; it is, more generally, a basic presupposition of Nietzsche's:

Urtheile, werthurtheile über das Leben, für oder wider, können zuletzt niemals wahr sein: sie haben nur Werth als Symptome, sie kommen nur als Symptome in Betracht, - an sich sind solche Urtheile Dummheiten. Man muss durchaus seine Finger ausstrecken und den Versuch machen, den erstaunliche finesse zu fassen, dass der Werth des Lebens nicht abgeschätzt werden kann. Von einem Lebenden nicht, weil solcher Partei, ja sogar der Streitobjekt ist und nicht Richter; von einem Todten nicht, aus einem andren Grund. - Von Seiten eines Philosophen im Werth des Lebens ein Problem sehn bleibt dergestalt sogar ein Einwurf gegen ihn, ein Fragezeichen an seiner Weisheit, eine Unweisheit.162

In the next two chapters, we will try to understand, in light of this rejection of the theological

perspective, which evolutionary and historical facts Nietzsche sees as essential to a proper critique of

morality, and what role he thinks they ought to play in value judgments, including any 'revaluation' of

moral values.

162GD, 'Das Problem des Sokrates,' §2.

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Conclusion

Kant's reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism is grounded on a careful distinction between

rational and empirical-causal orders, with the second of these characterized not only by a strict

determinism, but by a strict determinism on the model of mechanical-Newtonian causation. Such a

distinction might work well for the distinction between the activity of theoretical cognition and the

mechanical determination of the physical body. However, if we want the empirical self to be not merely

a physical body, but to include such things as inclinations, then the model of 'blind' mechanical

causation is awkward. This is especially true if our project is not simply reductionist, i.e., taking

mechanical causation as the ultimate reality underlying all phenomena, but aims instead to show that

the empirical self is in part the appearance, or one aspect, of a rational agent whose reason is causally

efficacious and therefore produces particular effects in the empirical world. For not only must the

inclinations then have a second, non-empirical-causal aspect, insofar as they affect the will of a rational

agent, but the agent will surely interfere with or 'infringe upon' the demands of these inclinations.

Otherwise we can hardly speak, with Kant, of the rational agent as independent of, while also

restraining and even 'striking down,' the inclinations. Yet, given other basic Kantian commitments,

insofar as the inclinations belong163 to the strictly deterministic empirical realm, their causality must not

be infringed upon by anything (e.g. a 'free causality' of reason) outside this realm.

Thus I argued in the first sections of this chapter that Kant runs into difficulty in bringing the

theoretical distinction of rational and empirical-causal orders to bear on his practical philosophy's

account of motivation. If we hold, however, merely to the phenomenal-causal aspect of the inclinations,

and give up the causal efficacy of reason, there is a certain plausibility to the account. That is, if we are

163As noted in chapter 1, to say that the inclinations 'belong' to the empirical realm of phenomenal causality is a shorthand way of saying that were the inclinations our only source of motivation, our agency would be reduced to a strictly deterministic mechanism. I'm not claiming that such a conception of agency is consistent, only that Kant himself makes such claims about the inclinations, even if they are meant per impossibile, in clarifying the relation between practical reason and the inclinations.

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trying to incorporate motivation into a deterministic empirical realm, it seems reasonable to focus on

pleasure and pain, as the best candidates for a kind of mechanical, or 'non-cognitive,' motive force

producing actions. This chapter looked in detail at how Schopenhauer holds to this deterministic aspect

of Kant's account of motivation, insisting that only pleasure and pain can move the will. Indeed

Schopenhauer expands this eudaemonistic-mechanical aspect of motivation into the 'cosmic

eudaemonism' that sees behind all phenomena the suffering will striving endlessly for satisfaction. This

brute purposeless striving, the will-in-itself, morphs, in Schopenhauer's philosophy, into the very glue

of deterministic necessity, the binding force between every motive and its subsequent action, between

every cause and its effect.

Nonetheless, Schopenhauer remains opposed to the egoistic eudaemonism that, according to his

own philosophy, governs the actions of individuals as such. He uncovers a path to freedom in ascetic

self-renunciation, in the voluntary self-negation of the will. I explained in the closing sections of this

chapter how this amounts to a renunciation of individuation, to an intuitive recognition, as he puts it, of

the primal unity of the will. When Schopenhauer's philosophy then assigns the highest values to the

resulting state, that of the pure knowing subject, it does so precisely relative to the desiring will-in-

itself, in particular, to the will's inner longing to be free from itself. We cannot, therefore, easily

concede Schopenhauer's various descriptions of this state, and of its redeemed, cheerful, peaceful

condition, as 'will-less,' 'free from will,' 'pure knowing,' etc. Nietzsche's critique raises serious doubts

about the consistency of Schopenhauer's metaphysics of will, and of its claims to justify renunciation as

an ethical ideal.

Nietzsche, like Kant and Schopenhauer, opposes an ethics of eudaemonism, particularly in the

forms of British Utilitarianism roughly contemporary with his own work. For Nietzsche, the emphasis

of both Kant and Schopenhauer on pleasure and pain as underlying component of motivation not only

distorts the true nature of motivation, but is especially misguided in opposing eudaemonism/

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utilitarianism. Nietzsche, writing after Darwin, is perhaps not as constrained as were Kant and

Schopenhauer, when reflecting on the empirical aspects of human agency, by a mechanical-Newtonian

conception of nature and empirical causality. In the following two chapters, I will examine how

Nietzsche's account of motivation, drawing heavily on an evolutionary and historical perspective of

human nature, offers a very different and, I think, more effective challenge to eudaemonism/

utilitarianism than the accounts of either Kant or Schopenhauer.

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Chapter 3

Evolution and Socialization: Nietzsche on Conflicting Modes of Behavioural Selection

Nietzsche's reorientation of moral philosophy along lines of health and sickness is crucial to

understanding both his rejection of utilitarianism and his dissatisfaction with the moral philosophical

approaches of Kant and Schopenhauer. That Nietzsche effects a shift from questions of moral truth to

questions of health does not, of course, mean that he isn't concerned with the truth or accuracy of his

own analyses. The point, broadly speaking, is simply that he rejects questions of moral philosophical

truth, so long as these are framed in abstraction from questions of health. He rejects a certain way of

framing questions about morality, and accordingly rejects the related conception of moral truth.

This raises the question, however, of whether Nietzsche holds a conception of properly moral

truth. Kant and Schopenhauer take morality on its own terms, as it were, and do not attempt to cash out

moral truths and values in non-moral terms. Nietzsche seems to take a different approach, locating, as

we'll explore below, moral questions within a broader framework of human evolution and social

developments, cashing in questions of moral values in terms of health and power. Within this

Nietzschean context, moral values seem to belong fundamentally not to any purported realm of moral

truth, but to the human struggle against illness and decline, and in quest of health and power. Hence

Nietzsche's conception of morality 'als Folge, als Symptom, als Maske, als Tartüfferie, als Krankheit,

als Missverständnis [...] als Ursache, als Heilmittel, als Stimulans, als Hemmung, als Gift.'1

Thus the Nietzschean shift may well leave room for truths, but these would seem to be truths

related to health and power, and thus not properly moral truths, in the sense that concerns Kant and

Schopenhauer. Such a conclusion, however, exaggerates the differences between Nietzsche's critique of

1 GM, Preface §6.

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morality and the moral philosophical projects of Kant and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche does not think that

moral questions, or questions about values, can be properly addressed in isolation from questions of

bodily health or social conditioning, but his aim is not simply to reduce morality to biology and

politics. Moreover, on important moral questions, as to the ground of human worth and dignity, for

instance, Nietzsche is, on key points, in close agreement with, perhaps surprisingly, Kant.

In this chapter, I want to draw out a common strand in the moral philosophical concerns of Kant

and Schopenhauer, on the one hand, and Nietzsche, on the other. This common ground is a shared

opposition to eudaemonism and utilitarianism, understood broadly as the view that happiness, as a

balance in life of pleasure over pain, is the highest good. I use 'eudaemonism' here in the narrow

Schopenhauerean sense of chapter 3, i.e., in a sense close to, or identical with, 'hedonism.' The British

Utilitarianism attacked by Nietzsche is distinct from egoistic eudaemonism, insofar as it clearly insists

on general happiness as the highest good. However, as we'll see below, utilitarianism (at least in the

forms known to, and attacked by, Nietzsche) justifies general happiness as the highest good by appeal

to a 'theory of life' according to which the ultimate good and goal for every individual is personal

happiness, understood as a balance of pleasure over pain for that individual. Kant, too, explicitly states

his opposition to any doctrine that would ground moral obligation in the promotion of general

happiness,2 i.e., he rejects utilitarianism, though not, of course, under that label.

In sections 3.1 and 3.2, I examine Nietzsche's opposition to British Utilitarianism, as developed

by Herbert Spencer and James Stuart Mill, in particular. Spencer is helpful here, not only because he is

a favourite target of Nietzsche's, but also because, for all the contempt Nietzsche directs at Spencer,

their respective diagnoses of the human condition and its sources of distress and misery are on many

counts similar. I'll explain three major objections Nietzsche has to British Utilitarianism, as he

understands it, objections that I characterize as motivational, ethical and teleological, respectively. The

2 E.g., KpV 5:34-35.

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teleological objection is not, however, aimed uniquely at utilitarianism, but applies to Kant and

Schopenhauer as well. Section 3.1 is primarily devoted to explaining the relevant aspects of Spencer's

philosophy, while section 3.2 is focused mainly on Nietzsche's objections, though there is inevitably

considerable overlap between the two sections.

Section 3.3 looks at Nietzsche's characterization of the formative and redemptive capacity of the

will to power in responding to and negotiating the conflict between social conditioning and natural

selection. Nietzsche thinks will-to-power in terms of the relations between various drives and instincts,

as we'll examine in detail below. In the human context, at least, the will to power develops to a large

extent through the conflict between social conditioning and natural selection, since this conflict plays

such a central role in the interrelation of our drives. The transformative and redemptive capacity of the

will to power constitutes Nietzsche's answer to Kantian practicality, or causal efficacy, of pure reason.

Finally, Section 3.4 considers an essential feature of the will to power, a characteristic of its

motivational structure, that is found also, though in a more restricted sense, in the respective accounts

of motivation given by Kant and Schopenhauer. Both Kant and Schopenhauer argue that a distinct

moral cognition – the practical cognition of freedom, for Kant, the intuitive cognition of the illusoriness

of individuation, for Schopenhauer – carries with it a distinct feeling – respect, for Kant, and

compassion, for Schopenhauer – such that the cognition and feeling together constitute a source of

motivation that raises the agent above merely eudaemonistic considerations and calculations. Nietzsche

agrees with Kant and Schopenhauer that value judgments, commitment to ideals, 'moral cognitions' in

general, involve sources of motivation beyond pleasure and pain; moral principles and ideals ought not,

for any of these three, to be either principles for, or disguised paths to, the maximization of pleasure

and happiness (whether general or individual). Nietzsche, however, thinks that Kant and Schopenhauer

interpret the point too narrowly, by restricting it to a unique cognition and its corresponding feeling,

and also too metaphysically, by grounding the character and significance of the feeling strictly in its

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relation to a distinct moral, or intelligible, realm. In this final section, then, we'll look at how

Nietzsche's conception of the will to power allows him to give this point its proper place, i.e., to

interpret this tie between cognition and feeling as a general element of motivation.

3.1 Spencer's 'rational utilitarianism'

Nietzsche rejects utilitarianism, as he understands it, on at least three broad grounds –

motivational, ethical, and what we might call teleological. John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer are the

primary representatives of utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, and of the two, Spencer is his favourite target.

In part, this is because Spencer, like Nietzsche, thinks that the history of moral values is essential to

moral philosophy. Nietzsche in fact credits Spencer and other 'English genealogists of morality' with

the only attempts made thus far at a history of morals.3 He thinks, however, that they have a terrible

grasp of the actual history of morals, so he uses these English genealogists, Spencer in particular, as a

contrasting set-up to his own genealogical account. I will begin this section with a brief look at some of

the main elements in Spencer's moral philosophy, before taking up the above three grounds on which

Nietzsche objects – the motivational, the ethical and the teleological – in turn.

The bulk of Spencer's prolific philosophical output consists of the ten-volume Synthetic

Philosophy, published between 1862 and 1896, and composed of First Principles, The Principles of

Biology in two volumes, The Principles of Psychology in two volumes, The Principles of Sociology in

three volumes, and The Principles of Ethics in two volumes.4 The vast scope of Synthetic Philosophy is

organized under a single all-encompassing principle of evolution that, according to Spencer, governs all

phenomena in the universe as an overarching principle of all more specific natural laws. This law of

3 See, e.g., GM I:1-2, also GM Preface, and FW §345.4 For comprehensive recent evaluations of Spencer's philosophy and legacy, see Michael W. Taylor, The Philosophy of

Herbert Spencer, Continuum International Publishing Group, London & New York, 2007, and David Weinstein, Equal Freedom and Utility: Herbert Spencer's Liberal Utilitarianism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 1998.

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cosmic evolution he defines as follows: 'Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant

dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a

definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel

transformation.'5

According to Spencer, this law governs the universe in all aspects of its development, from the

formation of nebulae and the solar system, to the biological evolution of life on earth, to the social

development of human beings. Spencer's grand vision of the law of cosmic evolution governing the

universe is as vast and sweeping as Schopenhauer's metaphysical hierarchy of the will's grades of

objectification. The human being has pride of place at the highest stage of Spencerean evolution as at

the pinnacle of the Schopenhauerean hierarchy, with the culmination of Spencerean evolution as

optimistic and utopian as the ultimate self-knowledge of Schopenhauerean will is pessimistic and

world-negating. Spencer argues that the social evolution of humanity passes from the primitive

beginnings of society found among 'savages,' through the militant stage of social development where

societies are internally despotic and outwardly mutually hostile, through to the next stage of industrial

society in which individuals within a society learn to cooperate ever more voluntarily for the mutual

benefit of all, and the government increasingly withdraws from interfering with the life of its people,

ensuring only basic safety and fair practices in trade and business. As humans become ever more

adapted to life in industrial society, they will approach a state in which every person's wants and needs

will be in perfect equilibrium with her environment and the wants and needs of others. Eventually the

present antagonism between egoism and altruism will be so fully reconciled that 'sympathetic pleasures

will be spontaneously pursued to the fullest extent advantageous to each and all.'6 For 'the re-moulding

of human nature into fitness for the requirements of social life, must eventually make all needful

5 Herbert Spencer, First Principles [1862], London, Williams and Norgate, 1915, p.321.6 Data of Ethics (DE), §95, p.250.

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activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all activities at variance with these requirements.' 7

Spencer's vision, clearly, pushes the utopian to its outer limits. Here I want only to briefly

outline three elements of Spencerean evolution as manifested in its stages of social development: first,

the mechanism by which evolution progresses, second, the normative standard of moral judgment with

which the process of evolution furnishes us, and, finally, the end at which this process aims. The first

two of these three elements provide, respectively, the motivational and the ethical grounds on which

Nietzsche objects to Spencer. The third is related to Nietzsche's 'teleological objection,' though less

straightforwardly and requires some explanation. I will focus in the following primarily on the

presentation of social development Spencer gives in The Data of Ethics (hereafter DE, originally

published in 1879 and later incorporated into volume 1 of The Principles of Ethics), as it seems to be

the one work of Spencer's we can be sure Nietzsche read.8

Spencer's law of cosmic evolution characterizes evolutionary progress in its most general terms:

integration of matter, dissipation of motion, and a movement from indefinite, incoherent homogeneity

to definite, coherent heterogeneity. Since we are not here concerned with this law in its full cosmic

abstractness, we can focus on the somewhat more concrete treatment Spencer gives it in governing the

evolution of life and social development. Spencer defines life (again in very general and abstract terms)

as 'the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.'9 That life is endlessly adaptable

to its environment, or to its 'external relations,' is a fundamental assumption underlying Spencer's view

of evolution. For Spencer, such adaptability signifies not only that organisms continuously change, i.e.,

7 DE, §67, p.183.8 Indeed, John Richardson notes that, in 1879, when still viewing Spencer favourably, Nietzsche even urges his publisher

to obtain the rights for a translation of Data of Ethics (John Richardson, Nietzsche's New Darwinism, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2004, p.14, note 6). In the same book, Richardson offers a carefully considered comparison of the 'Darwinisms' of Nietzsche and Spencer; see especially pp.137-186. All citations of Richardson in the following are given with page numbers from this publication. Michael W. Taylor's assessment of Spencer's philosophy, op cit, is particularly insightful and helpful for the central importance of Lamarckian selection to Spencer's position, in contrast to the more peripheral role for Darwinian natural selection. I will make occasional reference to each of these analyses in the following.

9 DE, §7, p.19. Spencer's 'less abridged' formula for life defines it as 'the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences.' (ibid.)

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modify their internal relations in response to their environment, but that this change constitutes

progress. There is a definite direction to evolution, and Spencer repeatedly insists that the incomplete

adaptation of an organism to its environment drives further evolution towards a state of complete

adaptation and, ultimately, to that 'highest life' and 'happiness' 'towards which the Power manifested

through Evolution works [...]'10 Spencer allows that complete adaptation may take different concrete

forms under different conditions, but he thinks that its essential characteristics can nonetheless be

generally described. Among these characteristics, Spencer lays greatest emphasis on the state of

complete adaptation being such that all needful activities will be purely pleasurable and never painful. 11

Pleasure and pain are the key notions not only for this perfect final state, the ultimate goal of

evolution, but also for the mechanism by which evolution operates and for the norms of right and

wrong action. Pleasure and pain belong to the subjective or experiential aspect of sentient existence. In

order to understand the evolutionary role Spencer gives to pleasure and pain, it is perhaps best to start

with their objective biological aspect. Underlying Spencer's evolutionary story is a mechanical theory

of living beings' 'continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.' At even the most

basic level of organization, Spencer notes, organisms respond to 'incident forces,' or environmental

stimulus, through various reflex actions. Those reflex actions that are most appropriate or successful for

survival are thereby strengthened and, when several such reflex actions come together in a typically

repeated sequence, these together constitute an instinct. Eventually, the increasing complexity of

stimuli to which instincts respond will lead to 'hesitation in the sensori-motor processes,' such that

'combined clusters of impressions not all present together, issue in actions not all simultaneous;

implying representation of results or thought.'12 Finally, we reach 'stages in which various thoughts

have time to pass before the composite motives produce the appropriate actions,' yielding 'long

10 DE, §62, pp.171-172. Cf. p.171: 'And that happiness is the supreme end is beyond question true.'11 See, e.g., DE, §67, §95.12 DE, §42, p.105.

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deliberations' and 'calm judgment.'13 Hence the importance of 'compounding and re-compounding' in

Spencer's philosophy: of reflex actions into instinct, of instincts into thought, and of thoughts into

deliberation, judgment and composite motives.

According to Spencer, the subjective, or 'sentient,' correlate of these compounding and re-

compoundings is present from early stages of evolution. In particular, pleasure and pain must be

attributed to even the most basic forms of animal life: 'throughout the animal world at large “pains are

the correlative of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are the correlatives of actions

conducive to its welfare,”'14 as Spencer affirms (quoting his own Principles of Psychology §124). After

all, pleasure is equivalent to 'a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there' and

pain to 'a feeling which we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out.'15 Thus any organism that

took pleasure in what was injurious to it, and felt pain in what was beneficial, would quickly die out:

'At the very outset, life is maintained by persistence in acts which conduce to it, and desistance from

acts which impede it; and whenever sentience makes its appearance as accompaniment, its forms must

be such that in the one case the produced feeling is of a kind that will be sought – pleasure, and in the

other case is of a kind that will be shunned – pain.'16 Spencer goes on to illustrate the 'necessity of these

relations,' starting not only from the lowest forms of animal life, but in fact from the potato and other

plant life.

Thus Spencer holds that consciousness 'first exists under the forms of pleasure and pain.'17

Pleasures and pains are the sentient, or subjectively felt, aspect of those basic reflex actions by which

organisms respond to their environment. As a basic 'law of life,' organisms must adapt to their

environment so as to avoid reflexive responses that are injurious to their survival and reproduction; the

13 DE, §42, p.105.14 DE, §33, p.79.15 DE, §33, p.79.16 DE, §33, p.79.17 DE, §39, p.100, note.

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aversions developed in accordance with this law of life are sensed as pains. Similarly 'the pleasurable

sensation must be itself the stimulus' to those responses 'by which the pleasurable sensation is

maintained and increased.'18 We might think that only the anticipation of the pleasurable sensation can

act as stimulus, but Spencer's general point is that even at the most basic stages of life, organisms must

have so evolved that they find pleasure not only in successfully achieving such basic ends as nutrition

and reproduction, but also in the myriad means to these ends. Organisms necessarily take pleasure in

the reflexes and, at higher stages, instincts and actions through which they ultimately meet their basic

needs and ends, or at least through which their biological ancestors for the most part met their basic

needs and ends. For this reason, Spencer argues, contra the pessimist, that life necessarily tends

towards a surplus of pleasurable over painful feelings. (Spencer claims that, while the optimist and

pessimist seem to disagree on the most fundamental issue – is life worth living? – this disagreement

itself actually rests on a deeper agreement, namely that pleasurable feeling is good and painful feeling

bad: the pessimist thinks life not worth living because he sees in it a surplus of pain over pleasure,

whereas the optimist sees the opposite.19) The contrast with Schopenhauer is particularly striking, since,

for Schopenhauer, we are motivated to act for the sake of a pleasurable goal (or what we take as such)

precisely from a feeling of pain or lack.

In any case, for Spencer, the primary mechanism of evolution, at least in its sentient or

subjective character, consists in a 'system of guidance by pleasures and pains.'20 Pleasures and pains are

the basic 'units' of consciousness, as the sentient aspect of basic reflex actions. (Since the reflex actions

are themselves, in principle, reducible to physical forces, pleasures and pains, being merely a different

aspect of these same reflex actions, are not basic units in the sense of 'ultimate elements': pleasures and

pains 'arise [...] by compounding of the ultimate elements of consciousness.'21 However, pleasures and

18 DE, §33, p.82.19 DE, §§10-11.20 DE, §34, p.84; similarly §43, p.109.21 DE, §39, p.100, note.

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pains are the basic units of consciousness in the sense that they are the first things to enter

consciousness, i.e., to be experienced by any sentient being. It is their 'compounding and re-

compounding' that yields instincts, thoughts, deliberations and judgment, as described above. At the

ground level of these processes of compounding, we find the reflex action as 'objective aspect' and

pleasures and pains as 'subjective aspect.')

Similarly to Kant and Schopenhauer, Spencer wants to explain animal action and ultimately

human agency within an empirical, causally-deterministic realm, conceived essentially along

mechanical-Newtonian lines (though for Kant and Schopenhauer, unlike for Spencer, this empirical

explanation is to be complemented with the explanation of a further, 'intelligible' aspect of agency). As

Taylor notes, Spencer, although he embraces some 19th century scientific notions, most obviously ones

tied to evolutionary theory, nonetheless holds to 'a conception that had underpinned the 18th century's

Newtonian universe in which all outcomes were determined by physical necessity.'22 Spencer locates

motivation and agency within this Newtonian universe by taking pleasures and pains to be the basic

motivational stimuli, given through the causal interaction of an organism with its environment, and to

be the subjective correlate of the resulting physical-causal determination of the organism in its actions.

As we saw in chapter 2, a parallel thought runs through Schopenhauer's account of motivation, in

which the striving for pleasure and satisfaction (understood there as release from pain) constitutes the

'inner view' on causality. More ambiguously, Kant argues, as we saw in chapter 1, that if the

inclinations, themselves grounded on feelings of pleasure and displeasure, were our only source of

motivation, our agency could then, in principle, be fully captured in causal, mechanical terms.

I'll return to Spencer and the normative lesson he takes from his conception of evolution in a

minute. It's worth noting first that this mechanical characterization of action is a major target of

Nietzsche's criticism, and that Nietzsche's objection applies not only to Spencer, but also to

22 Taylor, op cit, p.53.

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Schopenhauer and even to Kant, insofar as Schopenhauer and Kant also try to accommodate a

mechanical, or deterministic phenomenal-causal, account of agency, at least in its empirically

observable aspects. For Kant and Schopenhauer, however, the empirical realm so conceived remains

essentially meaningless until it is related to, and understood with reference to, an intelligible realm of

freedom, in which the ultimate meaning and value of the empirical world, particularly of human

actions, are grounded. Nietzsche also sees the world described by Spencer's philosophy, one in which

the law of cosmic evolution drives humanity inevitably, and at bottom mechanically, on to a state of

pure pleasure, as a world devoid of meaning. In FW §373, he contemptuously attacks 'den pedantischen

Herbert Spencer' and his reconciliation of egoism and altruism, before turning to 'materialistische

Naturforscher' in general:

Dass allein eine Welt-Interpretation im Rechte sei, bei der ihr zu Rechte besteht, bei der wissenschaftlich in eurem Sinne (- ihr meint eigentlich mechanistich?) geforscht und fortgearbeitet werden kann, eine solche, die Zählen, Rechnen, Wägen, Sehn und Greifen und nichts weiter zulässt, das ist eine Plumpheit und Naivetät, gesetzt, dass es keine Geisteskrankheit, kein Idiotismus ist. [...] Eine 'wissenschaftliche' Welt-Interpretation, wie ihr sie versteht, könnte folglich immer noch eine der dümmsten, das heißt sinnärmsten aller möglichen Welt-Interpretationen sein: dies den Herrn Mechanikern in's Ohr gesagt, die heute gern unter die Philosophen laufen und durchaus vermeinen, Mechanik sei die Lehre von den ersten und letzten Gesetzen, auf denen wie auf einem Grundstocke alles Dasein aufgebaut sein müsse. Aber eine essentiell mechanische Welt wäre eine essentiell sinnlose Welt!

Nietzsche insists that a mechanical interpretation of the world, i.e., one that takes mechanical

causation to be the foundation of all existence, would present a world without meaning or purpose.

However, we should be clear that it's not to a scientific (wissenschaftliche) interpretation of the world

as such that Nietzsche objects, a point he makes clear by using scare-quotes above, and by emphasizing

that he is attacking specifically the mechanist's understanding of science. As we'll see below and in

chapter 4, Nietzsche thinks that empirical facts and laws are crucial to understanding and evaluating

established moral values; facts and natural laws cannot, however, alone determine values. Nietzsche is

here objecting specifically to the interpretation of the world, in particular of human agency, in terms of

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the passive push-and-pull of mechanical causation, and thus to the dissolution of all 'composite

motives' into compoundings and re-compoundings of reflex actions or elemental pleasures and pains.

Thus Nietzsche opens the first essay of GM, in which he also singles out Spencer for his lack of

historical sense, with the observation that one finds these 'englischen Psychologen [...] immer am

gleichen Werke, nämlich [...] gerade dort das eigentlich Wirksame, Leitende, für die Entwicklung

Entscheidende zu suchen, wo der intellektuelle Stolz des Menschen es am letzten zu finden wünschte

(zum Beispiel in der vis inertiae der Gewohnheit oder in der Vergesslichkeit oder in einer blinden und

zufälligen Ideen-Verhäkelung und -Mechanik oder in irgend etwas Rein-Passivem, Automatischem,

Reflexmässigem, Molekularem und Gründlich-Stupidem) [...]'23

As we've seen with Kant, Schopenhauer and now Spencer, if a philosopher is looking to give a

causal interpretation of human agency, in line with a roughly 18 th century, mechanical-Newtonian

conception of nature, pleasures and pains seem to present themselves naturally as the subjective side of

such an account, as causality 'seen [or felt] from the inside.' Nietzsche rejects the idea that mechanical

causation can be taken as a kind of ground-floor interpretation of the world, on top of which, or in

terms of which, everything else is to be understood.24 But this mechanical reductionism is especially

pernicious, according to Nietzsche, when it aims to reduce human agency to, and thus to interpret the

values we hold and the ways we value in terms of, something 'utterly passive, automatic, reflexive, and

fundamentally stupid.' Kant and Schopenhauer refuse to locate the sole or ultimate ground of agency

23 GM I:1. It's worth noting that Nietzsche nonetheless praises these English psychologists for pursuing even 'ugly truths.' In context, even this praise, clearly, can be taken as partly facetious; the point that 'there are such truths' and that they are worth pursuing is, however, undoubtedly made in earnest. The more serious criticism that Nietzsche proceeds to drive home is that these 'English psychologists' are completely lacking in 'historical spirit.' Below, and in chapter 4, we'll see in what sense the historical spirit is necessary, according to Nietzsche, to make sense of human drives and desires, and agency in general.

24 This is certainly not to say that he is a non-determinist or thinks that mechanical laws of nature are sometimes violated. But as the end of FW §373 makes clear, he doesn't think we can interpret all meaning in terms of mechanical laws: 'Gesetzt, man schätzte den Wert einer Musik darnach ab, wie viel von ihr gezählt, berechnet, in Formeln gebracht werden könne – wie absurd wäre eine solche “wissenschaftliche” Abschätzung der Musik! Was hätte man voh ihr begriffen, verstanden, erkannt! Nichts, geradezu Nichts von dem, was eigentlich an ihr “Musik” ist!' As the passage quoted from GM makes clear, what Nietzsche says here of music, he holds also of human motivation.

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and values in a mechanical realm, though they conceive empirical nature itself in largely those terms;

in section 3.4 below, I'll look at what Nietzsche likes about the 'interventions' Kant and Schopenhauer

allow on the part of an intelligible realm into the empirical, in spite of his rejection of the intelligible-

empirical dualism itself.

In objecting to the 'English,' or Spencerean, fixation on mechanical causation, Nietzsche thus

objects most particularly to the idea that pleasures and pains constitute the common underlying source

of motivation or the ultimate end of all human actions. Spencer is simply wrong, as Nietzsche sees it, to

imagine that pleasures and pains lie at the bottom of all more 'composite motives.' In order to get a

handle on the issues in play here, we need to take a closer look at the 'motivational utilitarian claim'

Nietzsche rejects. The claim may be put most generally as follows: an individual always acts on the

basis of inclinations or desires whose common underlying motive force is the longing for pleasure or

the aversion to pain. In chapter 1, we examined the sense in which Kant accepts such a motivational

utilitarian claim as valid for any agent acting under the principle of happiness, and in chapter 2, we

examined the sense in which Schopenhauer accepts it as valid for any agent acting under the illusion of

individuation.

Now, neither Spencer nor Mill holds to the motivational utilitarian claim as necessarily or

universally true. Spencer allows, for instance, that people often enough act altruistically against their

own happiness, sacrificing their own pleasure or even suffering pains to help someone else. He

acknowledges that, in fact, most of us think that acting altruistically means sacrificing, at least to some

extent, one's happiness for the sake of someone else's.25 The wide-spread belief that acting morally

generally demands sacrifice of pleasure and acceptance of pain has in fact produced all manner of

aberrant ascetic practices.26 Spencer holds, however, that an organism's acting against its own happiness

can only be a symptom of its still-imperfect adaptation to the conditions in which it lives. For humans,

25 DE, §96, p.255.26 DE, §37, pp.93-95. Cf. also Preface, pp.4-5, and §43, pp.109-113.

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in particular, adaptation includes improving social structure and organization, and until we progress

beyond 'militant,' 'antagonistic' societies, personal sacrifice for the safety and greater good of one's own

society is both possible and morally praiseworthy.

Spencer explains the rise of 'antagonistic societies' and the resulting conflict between altruism

and egoism as follows. In brief, when primitive human populations reached levels engendering serious

competition for resources, the evolutionary advantage lay with those who formed themselves into well-

organized, i.e., hierarchical, internally coherent and obedient fighting groups. In other words, the

advantage lay with those who subordinated individual well-being to the survival and prosperity of the

group as a whole. This is the essence of the militant stage of social evolution, where 'social

preservation becomes a proximate aim taking precedence of the ultimate aim, individual self-

preservation.'27 However, this 'subordination of personal to social welfare is [...] contingent: it depends

on the presence of antagonistic societies.'28 It is 'manifest,' then, that 'when social antagonisms cease,

this need for sacrifice of private claims to public claims ceases also; or rather, there cease to be any

public claims at variance with private claims.'29

The adjustment to industrial society, based as it is on 'voluntary co-operation,' will naturally

take a certain amount of time, after centuries of living in militant societies based on 'coercive co-

operation.'30 Because the conditions of human existence have changed so dramatically during our

historical social development, the 're-adjustment of constitution to conditions, involving re-adjustment

of pleasures and pains for guidance, which all creatures from time to time undergo, has been in the

human race during civilization, especially difficult [...]'31 For the time being, we still experience 'a

conflict between the two moral natures adjusted to these two unlike modes of life.'32 In particular, a

27 DE, §49, p.134.28 DE, §49, p.134.29 DE, §49, p.134.30 DE, §35, p.86.31 DE, §35, p.86.32 DE, §35, p.86.

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good chunk of that morality still survives which preaches self-sacrifice and views pleasure negatively

as 'indulgence,' and which was necessary to coerce primitive humans into the discipline and

organization of militant societies.

Two major developments of modernity signal, for Spencer, the gradual demise of this militant

morality. First, trade and commerce between states are, he argues, reducing their mutual antagonisms

and creating a context in which the increasingly industrial states are more fit to prosper. This reduces

the internal rigidity of societies, allowing individuals greater freedom to pursue their interests. Second,

this greater freedom, tied as it is to voluntary co-operation between individuals within a society, is in

turn both symptom, and further cause, of rising mutual sympathy and identification of common

interests between individuals. In general, we learn to take pleasure in each other's pleasures and well-

being as we simultaneously learn to see our interests as interwoven with everyone else's, and thus learn,

moreover, that it is to our advantage, and therefore conducive to our own happiness, to further weave

our various interests together. Eventually, the 'pleasures and pains which the moral sentiments

originate, will, like bodily pleasures and pains, become incentives and deterrents so adjusted in their

strengths to the needs, that the moral conduct will be the natural conduct.'33

Our social evolution thus proceeds according to the very same logic as that according to which

our natural evolution always has. So much so, that '[f]rom the laws of life it must be concluded that

unceasing social discipline will so mould human nature, that eventually sympathetic pleasures will be

spontaneously pursued to the fullest extent advantageous to each and all.'34 The 'guidance by a system

of pleasures and pains' underlying Spencer's evolutionary theory is such that, though we inevitably tend

to pursue those activities and ends that have proved pleasurable (because beneficial) to our

evolutionary ancestors, we can be coerced by pains and threats of pains into new modes of behaviour.

That is, after all, the purpose of legal punishments: they make certain pains into the consequences of

33 DE, §47, p.131.34 DE, §95, p.250.

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behaviour that may have been beneficial in a primitive or militant human past, in order for these pains

(or ideally only the threat of these pains) to counter the acquired drives and desires that for some time

will continue to produce such primitive or militant behaviour. The public disapproval and the sting of

conscience act in a similar way, tying pains as consequences to behaviour that is no longer suited to

existing conditions: for 'always and everywhere, there arises among men a [moral] theory conforming

to their practice.'35 In time, even our pleasures and pains will adjust to the progress of practice and

theory, and neither legal punishment nor conscience will ultimately be needed as deterrents from

behaviour harmful to oneself or others.

Therefore, while Spencer concedes that we sometimes act against our own happiness, this only

comes about because evolution pushes us to adapt to external factors by acquiring habits that will

harmonize our happiness with those external factors, i.e., bring a 're-adjustment of pleasures and pains

for guidance,' and thus bring us ultimately to the greatest happiness possible given the conditions in

which we live. For, as Spencer insists, 'that happiness is the supreme end is beyond question true'36; it is

the concomitant of 'the highest life,' and the highest life is 'the naturally-revealed end towards which

the Power manifested throughout Evolution works [...]'37 Thus we evolve towards that form of

happiness which is perfectly adapted to external factors, involving not only a surplus of pleasure over

pain, but even pure pleasure and the complete absence of pain. As human evolution reaches its final

equilibrium, 'industrial activities carried on through voluntary co-operation, will in time acquire the

character of absolute rightness as here conceived.'38 (Only activities that result in pure pleasure are

'absolutely right,' according to Spencer, while those that produce a surplus of pleasure over pain are

'relatively right.'39)

35 DE, §38, p.97.36 DE, §62, p.172.37 DE, §62, p.171.38 DE, §102, p.263.39 DE, §101, p.261.

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Since humans are destined to live socially, this utopian equilibrium can only be attained through

a reconciliation of altruism with egoism, a topic to which Spencer devotes four chapters (11 through

14) in DE. Through this reconciliation, pursuing one's own individual happiness will be made perfectly

conformable to pursuing the greatest happiness of the greatest number. We must keep this end state in

mind in order to put ethics on a scientific foundation, that is, to develop what Spencer calls 'absolute

ethics.'40 Since, as quoted above, there always 'arises among men a theory conforming to their practice,'

these theories are only relative to the stage of evolution in which they arise. If we are to understand

what constitutes progress in our moral thinking and actions, and how best to resolve conflicts between

different moral theories, we have to keep the ultimate end of absolute right in view.

Mill also allows that we sometimes act against our own happiness, and that it can be admirable

to sacrifice one's own happiness for that of another, or for the general happiness.41 Mill, like Spencer,

adds, however, that this sacrifice is only admirable so long as the happiness of others is the point of the

sacrifice: 'A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, [the

utilitarian morality] considers as wasted. The only self-renunciation which it applauds, is devotion to

the happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others.'42 Like Spencer, then, Mill holds that the

notion of moral sacrifice only makes sense so long as there is conflict or tension between increasing

one's personal happiness and increasing the 'sum total of happiness.' Again like Spencer, Mill sees the

greatest possible reduction of such conflict as a fundamental social aim, and the complete

reconciliation of individual with general happiness as a moral ideal: 'As the means of making the

nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place

the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as

possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which

40 See DE, Chapter XV 'Absolute Ethics and Relative Ethics,' p.258-280.41 Mill, 'Utilitarianism,' p.217 in Collected Works vol.10, edited by J.M. Robson, University of Toronto Press, 1969. In the

following, all page numbers for citations of Mill are from this volume of the Collected Works.42 Mill, p.218.

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have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of

every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole.' 43

(Despite these broad points of agreement, each explicitly criticizes details of the other's philosophy.

Mill claims that Spencer confuses the natural and moral senses of 'lawfulness' by conceiving of general

happiness as the inevitable outcome of natural laws, while then also taking these natural laws as moral

laws that must – in the sense of moral obligation – be obeyed so as to further progress towards the ideal

end of evolution. In other words, Mill asks how morality can command what is already a natural law.

Spencer responds that Mill's position amounts only to 'empirical utilitarianism' and a 'relative'

perspective on ethics, precisely because he doesn't accept the scientific basis of the ultimate

reconciliation between individual and general happiness.44 Hence Spencer's own rational utilitarianism

has, he argues, the advantages noted at the end of the previous paragraph.)

For both Spencer and Mill, happiness is the ultimate good because the ultimate aim of every

individual is his own happiness. Mill puts the point bluntly: 'No reason can be given why the general

happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own

happiness.'45 In other words, the ethical utilitarian claim, which we will consider in more detail in a

43 Mill, p.218.44 See DE, §21 and §45.45 Mill, p.234. To be fair, Mill clearly recognizes that the desirability of general happiness hardly follows immediately from

the desirability of personal happiness. Thus he argues, for instance, that '[t]he deeply-rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures [...] This conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality' (p.233). Here Mill supplements the bald statement that 'each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore [!], a good to the aggregate of all persons,' with the further claim that it is a natural want that there should be harmony between one's own happiness and that of others. This further claim is certainly not implausible, but it is far less obvious than the claim that 'each person's happiness is a good to that person.' Indeed, someone who holds a comparative view of happiness will reject the further claim, or at least add heavy qualification. Note that Allen Wood, for instance, highlights just such a comparative view of happiness in Kant: 'In us, Kant says, the predisposition to humanity calls for “a physical but comparative self-love (for which reason is required): namely, judging ourselves happy or unhappy only in comparison with others (Rel. 6:27/22). Our pursuit of happiness thus also always involves comparing ourselves with other people; further the original point of considering ourselves to be happy is that we want to think of ourselves as better than others; conversely, Kant says, we think of ourselves as unhappy or badly off only to the extent that we think of our condition as one that might cause others to despise us (Rel. 6:94/85)' (from 'Self-Love, Self-Benevolence, and Self-Conceit' in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: rethinking happiness and duty, op cit, pp.141-161).

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minute, is grounded in the motivational utilitarian claim. But as we've just seen, this motivational claim

requires some interpretation. It's presented by Spencer and Mill, and utilitarians generally, largely as a

matter of fact, indeed as the matter of fact lending utilitarianism its greatest support. However, as both

Spencer and Mill concede, it cannot be taken as universally and necessarily true; quite often people

choose to sacrifice part of their own happiness for the sake of others, and this often rightly arouses our

admiration. Nonetheless both Spencer and Mill hold that under ideal conditions, i.e., under conditions

in which there is no occasion for conflict between individual and general happiness, we would never

have reason to act contrary to our own happiness. Thus the motivational utilitarian claim is something

like a fact about humans living under ideal conditions.46

While it may be somewhat paradoxical to refer to the 'facts' of an ideal state, the intended

meaning is fairly clear. Spencer and Mill agree that it is natural for individuals to pursue pleasures and

avoid pains, 'natural' here meaning that only special circumstances can lead to deviations from such

pursuit. For instance, perceiving conflict between pursuing one's own happiness and increasing the

happiness of someone else, or of society in general, might lead to sacrificing one's own happiness for

the happiness of another or for the general happiness. However, even such sacrifice presupposes that

the personal happiness of others is seen as valuable – that is the whole point of the sacrifice. Thus it

remains always and everywhere personal happiness that we value and that motivates our actions. It is

thus a short step to conclude that where there is no conflict between different individuals' pursuits of

happiness, everyone ought to pursue her own happiness since there would then be absolutely no reason

or sense to sacrificing it. This does not mean, of course, that everyone would then be selfish – often our

pleasures will come from bringing pleasure to others, or from sharing an activity and its enjoyment. But

none of this would ever require sacrifice of one's own pleasure or happiness.

46 See also the previous note, however, for Mill's further claim that every individual tends to feel as 'one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures.' That the harmony between personal and general happiness should be a moral ideal would then be grounded, at least partly, on the kind of natural want that Mill claims here as a fact of human nature.

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While the motivational utilitarian claim is primarily a claim about matters of fact, the exact

factual nature of the claim thus needs some nuancing and interpretation. We've just considered the

nuancing necessary with respect to the claim as found in Spencer, and, more briefly, as articulated by

Mill. I don't want to pursue these nuances any further, however, since Nietzsche's rejection of the claim

doesn't turn on them. Basic facts about human evolution, social history and psychology show,

Nietzsche thinks, that the motivational utilitarian claim is simply untenable. As with the utilitarianism

of Spencer and Mill, the normative elements of Nietzsche's moral philosophy rest heavily on purported

facts about human nature. In the next section, I look at Nietzsche's counter to the motivational

utilitarian claim, and at the conflicting ethical claims put forward by Spencer and Nietzsche, on the

basis of their respective views on the nature of human motivation and evolutionary history.

3.2 'Only the Englishman does that'

Nietzsche tends to express his rejection of the motivational utilitarian claim with an overriding

note of contempt. In the 'Maxims and Arrows' opening Götzendämmerung (GD), he famously quips,

'Der Mensch strebt nicht nach Glück; nur der Engländer thut das.'47 This 'arrow' naturally raises the

question of what the human being – in contrast to 'the Englishman' – strives for. An answer is suggested

in the preceding sentence, the 'maxim' accompanying his shot at the Englishman: 'Hat man sein

warum? des Lebens, so verträgt sich man fast mit jedem wie?' Against British Utilitarianism, the

obvious target of this maxim-and-arrow, Nietzsche here asserts that life requires first of all some aim

and goal, a 'why?' to give it meaning and purpose; the 'how?' or degree of happiness that follows is a

secondary matter. Of course, this is entirely question-begging if we don't accept the implication

Nietzsche clearly expects us to hear: that the happiness on which utilitarianism bestows the status of

ultimate end is no genuine end at all, and cannot give meaning or purpose to life.

47 GD, 'Sprüche und Pfeile,' #12.

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That Nietzsche here wants us to hear 'happiness' in a specifically utilitarian sense, is clear from

the last of his 'Maxims and Arrows' in GD: 'Formel meines Glücks: ein Ja, ein Nein, eine gerade Linie,

ein Ziel ...'48 Though it might seem paradoxical to give a formula for happiness after scornfully

claiming that only the Englishman strives for it, Nietzsche is really making the same point in both

passages: happiness is not a goal in itself, but requires, at least if it's to be meaningful, commitment to

some more definite, or perhaps a 'higher,' aim or purpose. The superficiality of utilitarian happiness is

Nietzsche's real target here.

(Nietzsche of course proposes the will to power as his substitute for the 'English' striving after

happiness, as also for Schopenhauer's 'will to life.' However, isolated as a mere formula, will-to-power

obscures much more than it reveals about Nietzsche's position. I discuss will-to-power in section 3.3,

and other central Nietzschean concepts, such as will-to-truth, perspectivism and interpretation, in

chapter 4. For the moment, I want only to lay out Nietzsche's objections to the main utilitarian claims.)

Nietzsche also points to the superficiality of utilitarianism in the opening sentence of JGB §225,

a passage that will be important below in understanding the moral ground of Nietzsche's objection to

utilitarianism. Nietzsche introduces the passage with the same basic complaint that utilitarianism

focuses only on 'secondary phenomena' and is a 'foreground way of thinking':

Ob Hedonismus, ob Pessimismus, ob Utilitarismus, ob Eudämonismus: alle diese Denkweisen, welche nach Lust und Leid, das heisst nach Begleitzuständen und Nebensachen den Werth der Dinge messen, sind Vordergrunds-Denkweisen und Naivetäten [...]49

For Nietzsche, pleasure and suffering are merely consequences, or reflections, of the harmony,

struggle, confrontation, cooperation, etc., between drives and desires that themselves have particular

goals and purposes beyond pleasure and suffering. Thus hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism,

eudaemonism, insofar as they focus on pleasure and (avoidance of) pain as fundamental to motivation

48 GD, 'Sprüche und Pfeile,' #44.49 JGB, §225.

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and moral values, are all essentially superficial ways of thinking about desires and values.

But what, precisely, is the utilitarian claim Nietzsche targets here? Does he imagine that the

utilitarian paints a picture of human agency in which the only end and value we see in all our actions is

pleasure, or avoidance of pain? Any reasonable utilitarian will agree that in almost every volition

something other than happiness is the immediate aim, and that without such more immediate aims and

goals, we could not possibly attain pleasure and happiness. In fact, Spencer, for one, insists on precisely

this point, and it's a prominent feature of his 'rational utilitarianism' that there must always be a reason,

an evolutionary explanation, as to why we take pleasure in given activities. Living creatures find

pleasurable those activities that are beneficial to them as organisms, or more precisely, that have proven

beneficial to their biological ancestors. Thus, for instance, we 'have the primary end of nutrition with its

accompanying satisfaction.'50 Spencer acknowledges that the pleasure, or satisfaction, must be

secondary, in the sense that pleasure accompanies nutrition because nutrition is beneficial to the

organism (and because evolution favours those organisms who take pleasure in what is beneficial to

them). The explanation does not work in the other direction: it would be nonsense to say that organisms

evolved to feed themselves because nutrition happens to bring pleasure.

Spencer actually turns this into a point of criticism against Mill's 'empirical utilitarianism,'

arguing that Mill does not grasp the scientific explanation behind pleasure and the ongoing adjustments

of pleasures and pains to our social existence. Thus Mill also lacks, in Spencer's view, a moral compass

for determining which adjustments are necessary for continued progress along this path of evolutionary

adaptation. Whatever the validity of this criticism, Mill nonetheless also clearly acknowledges that

happiness is generally not the proximate aim of our actions. Both Spencer and Mill therefore hold the

motivational utilitarian claim only in the more reasonable sense that the ultimate end of all our more

proximate aims is happiness, understood as a balance of pleasurable feelings over painful ones.51 They

50 DE, §58, p.158.51 DE, §§10-11, pp.27-32.

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certainly agree with Nietzsche that utilitarianism would be superficial, even nonsensical, if it took

pleasure, or happiness, as the immediate aim and goal of all our activities.

Nietzsche, though, thinks that it is superficial to imagine even that the ultimate end of our

actions is generally pleasure and happiness. This point, however, is much less obviously true than the

claim that pleasure and happiness generally depend on more specific goals and interests. In order to

justify it, Nietzsche needs to argue not only that we require some account and characterization of the

particular drives and desires underlying our pleasures and pains, but also that a factually sound account

will convince us of the falseness, or at least of the superficiality, of the motivational utilitarian claim

actually advanced by Spencer and Mill, i.e., that the ultimate end of our drives and desires is pleasure

and happiness (though in particular circumstances we may, as explained in section 3.1, sacrifice this

end for the pleasure and happiness of others).

Like Spencer, Nietzsche thinks that the essential facts to be noted in any broad account of

human drives and desires come from the long history of human evolution and social development. We

looked at Spencer's understanding of evolution and its shaping of human drives and desires above. It's

not hard to find the fundamental point of disagreement with Nietzsche. Spencer puts plainly the point

to which Nietzsche most strenuously objects: 'The pleasures and pains which the moral sentiments

originate, will, like bodily pleasures and pains, become incentives and deterrents so adjusted in their

strengths to the needs, that the moral conduct will be the natural conduct.'52 Spencer sees the history of

human social development as a continuation of our natural evolution, i.e., as following the same logic

and as part of the very same process.

Nothing could be more antithetical to Nietzsche's understanding of this same history.

Nietzsche's GM is directed, in its manner of reconstructing the broad facts of the history of morality,

squarely against this 'English way' of historicizing about morality. Admittedly, Nietzsche notes in the

52 DE, §47, p.131.

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Preface to GM that, as a polemic, his book is directed at Schopenhauer. But the debate with

Schopenhauer is over the value of selflessness and pity. The means Nietzsche chooses, in order to

'come to terms' with Schopenhauer, are 'Hypothesenwesen über den Ursprung der Moral'53 and here he

has, as he puts it, only 'englischen Psychologen' to thank for the first attempts at these.54

Nietzsche is scathing in his critique of these attempts. In the Preface to GM, he claims that the

first impulse to express something of his own hypotheses about the origin of morality came from a little

book, 'in welchem mir eine umgekehrte und perverse Art von genealogischen Hypothesen, ihre

eigentlich englische Art, zum ersten Male deutlich entgegentrat, und das mich anzog – mit jener

Anziehungskraft, die alles Entgegensetzte, alles Antipodische hat.'55 The book in question is by Paul

Rée, but the objections Nietzsche raises are tailor-made for Spencer's philosophy, and Nietzsche goes

on to single out Spencer from among his more general English targets in GM I.

Nietzsche criticizes, first, the fact that Dr. Rée, 'gleich allen englischen Moralgenealogen,'56 sees

the altruistic mode of valuing as the moral mode of valuing as such. Nietzsche, by contrast, insists that

'die “Sittlichkeit der Sitte,” jene viel ältere und ursprünglichere Art Moral' lies 'toto caelo' apart from

the altruistic mode of valuing. The English moralists' view that altruism constitutes the essence of

moral values blinds them to the actual historical facts, according to Nietzsche. He had hoped to warn

Dr. Rée in time against such 'englischen Hypothesenwesen ins Blaue [...] Es liegt ja auf der Hand,

welche Farbe für einen Moralgenealogen hundertmal wichtiger sein muss als gerade das Blaue:

nämlich das Graue, will sagen, das Urkundliche, das Wirklich-Feststellbare, das Wirklich-Dagewesene,

kurz die ganze lange, schwer zu entziffernde Hieroglyphenschrift der menschlichen Moral-

Vergangenheit!'57

53 GM, Preface §5.54 GM I:1.55 GM, Preface §4.56 GM, Preface §4.57 GM, Preface §7.

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Ignorance of the actual history of morality is most damaging precisely to the English moral-

genealogists' understanding of Darwin and of the significance of human evolution for interpreting our

social and moral past. The actual history of morality was unknown to Dr. Rée, Nietzsche continues,

aber er hatte Darwin gelesen – und so reichen sich in seinen Hypothesen auf eine Weise, die zum mindesten unterhaltend ist, die Darwinsche Bestie und der allermodernste bescheidne Moral-Zärtling, der 'nicht mehr beisst,' artig die Hand, letzterer mit dem Ausdruck einer gewissen gutmütigen und feinen Indolenz im Gesicht [...]58

Let's turn, then, to Nietzsche's alternative account of the relation between our animal evolution and

social conditioning, a relation that is also central, as we saw earlier, to Spencer's moral philosophy.59

The most important element of our moral history, according to Nietzsche, is the radical break

from our animal past that came with the rise of law-governed societies, including, in particular, violent

and often public punishments for transgressions of the law. The logic of socialization, first and

foremost the brutal process of burning 'fünf, sechs “ich will nicht” im Gedächtnisse,'60 through which

humans were made 'einförmig, gleich unter Gleichen, regelmässig' with the help of 'der sozialen

Zwangsjacke'61 of the morality of mores, is entirely distinct, as Nietzsche sees it, from the logic of

natural selection.62

Of course, the idea is hardly new with Nietzsche that our animal nature stands in some tension

with social mores, and that many of our natural instincts and drives are inevitably repressed or

58 GM, Preface §7.59 Sandwiched between these comments on Paul Rée, Nietzsche insists that the 'value of morality' is ultimately of much

more concern to him than 'hypothesis-mongering' about the origin of morality, and that the latter was only one means among many to this more serious problem. (GM, Preface §5) Over this question of value, in particular 'um den Wert des “Unegoistischen,” der Mitleids-, Selbstverleugnungs-, Selbstopferungs-Instinkte,' Nietzsche says that he had 'fast allein mit meinem grossen Lehrer Schopenhauer auseinanderzusetzen' (ibid). We will come to this question of value below, but whatever other means Nietzsche sees, and elsewhere uses, to tackle this more serious question, the history of morality is that on which he stakes his argument in GM, and I think that we cannot properly understand any other means or forms of argument Nietzsche marshals for his revaluation of values so long as we consider these in isolation from the moral history he tells. I'll touch on this point again in section 3.3.

60 GM II:3.61 GM II:2.62 The natures of, and relation between, social selection and natural selection, in Nietzsche's philosophy, are given a

thorough and excellent analysis by Richardson in Nietzsche's New Darwinism, op cit, to which I will occasionally refer in the following.

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constrained through the process of socialization. As we saw above, Spencer himself acknowledges and

develops just this point, for it follows from his own evolutionary perspective that adapting to new

external factors takes time, and, since the changes in social conditions have been dramatic as humans

have moved from primitive through militant to industrial societies, we are at present far from fully

adjusted to life in industrial society. Nonetheless, it follows from Spencer's somewhat idiosyncratic

Lamarckian conception of evolution that, in adapting to life in industrial society, i.e., in the 're-

adjustment of constitution to conditions, involving re-adjustment of pleasures and pains for guidance,'63

those drives and instincts that are not suited to such life will eventually disappear. Their replacement

with drives and instincts better adjusted to existing social conditions is simply a continuation of our

biological evolution.

Nietzsche, by contrast, thinks that, while socialization involves repression, redirection,

sublimation and 'taming' of our naturally evolved drives and instincts, these cannot simply disappear.

Socialization, or social selection, manipulates existing drives, but does not erase them at the biological

level to replace them there with new drives and instincts. Rather, human 'prehistory' is, as Nietzsche

sees it 'zu allen Zeiten da [...] oder wieder möglich.'64

Let's take a look at the passage in which Nietzsche most clearly lays out his contrasting vision

of the relation between our animal past and socialization, his 'more probable hypotheses' concerning the

origin of moral values. I quote the section, GM II:16, at length, as it is central to our entire discussion in

this chapter.

Ich nehme das schlechte Gewissen als die tiefe Erkrankung, welcher den Mensch unter dem Druck jener gründlichsten aller Veränderungen verfallen musste, die er überhaupt erlebt hat – jener Veränderung als er sich endgültig in den Bann der Gesellschaft und des Friedens eingeschlossen fand. Nicht anders als es den Wassertieren ergangen sein muss, als sie gezwungen wurden, entweder Landtiere zu werden oder zu grunde zu gehen, so ging es diesen der Wildnis, dem Kriege, dem Herumschweifen, dem Abenteuer glücklich angepassten Halbtieren – mit einem Male

63 DE, §35, p.86.64 GM II:9.

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waren alle ihre Instinkte entwertet und 'ausgehängt.' [...] Zu den einfachsten Verrichtungen fühlten sie sich ungelenk, sie hatten für diese neue unbekannte Welt ihre alten Führer nicht mehr, die regulierenden unbewusst-sicherführenden Triebe – sie waren auf Denken, Schliessen, Berechnen, Kombinieren von Ursachen und Wirkungen reduziert, diese Unglücklichen, auf ihr 'Bewusstsein,' auf ihr ärmlichstes und fehlgreifendstes Organ! Ich glaube, dass niemals auf Erden ein solches Elends-Gefühl, ein solches bleiernes Missbehagen dagewesen ist – und dabei hatten jene alten Instinkten nicht mit einem Male aufgehört, ihre Forderungen zu stellen! Nur war es schwer und selten möglich, ihnen zu Willen zu sein: in der Hauptsache mussten sie sich neue und gleichsam unterirdische Befriedigungen suchen. Alle Instinkte, welche sich nicht nach aussen entladen, wenden sich nach innen – dies ist das, was ich die Verinnerlichung des Menschen nenne: damit wächst erst das an den Menschen heran, was man später seine 'Seele' nennt. Die ganze innere Welt, ursprünglich dünn wie zwischen zwei Häute eingespannt, ist in dem Masse auseinander- und aufgegangen, hat Tiefe, Breite, Höhe bekommen, als die Entladung des Menschen nach aussen gehemmt worden ist.

Note that consciousness is identified as the site of conflict between the demands of our 'old instincts' –

i.e., those evolved through natural selection – and the repressive demands of life in society governed by

law and mores – the repression of socialization. As a product of natural selection, the more ancient

mode of behavioural selection, consciousness was merely 'an organ,' an instrument of the body.

Socialization demands that consciousness take a commanding role, that it govern its former 'master,'

the body, and all the bodily wants and needs that continue to press their orders. The passage continues

with Nietzsche elaborating on the basic forces of social repression and their consequences:

Jene furchtbaren Bollwerke, mit denen sich die staatliche Organisation gegen die alten Instinkte der Freiheit schützte – die Strafen gehören vor allem zu diesen Bollwerken –, brachten zuwege, dass alle jene Instinkte des wilden freien schweifenden Menschen sich rückwärts, sich gegen den Menschen selbst wandten. Die Feindschaft, die Grausamkeit, die Lust an der Verfolgung, am überfall, am Wechsel, and der Zerstörung – alles das gegen den Inhaber solcher Instinkte sich wendend: das ist der Ursprung des 'schlechten Gewissens.' Der Mensch, der sich, aus Mangel an äusseren Feinden und Widerständen, eingezwängt in eine drückende Enge und Regelmässigkeit der Sitte, ungeduldig selbst zeriss, verfolgte, annagte, aufstörte, misshandelte, dies an den Gitterstangen seines Käfigs sich wundstossende Tier, das man 'zähmen' will, dieser Entbehrende und vom Heimweh der Wüste Verzehrte, der aus sich selbst ein Abenteuer, eine Folterstätte, eine unsichere und gefährliche Wildnis schaffen musste – dieser Narr, dieser sehnsüchtige und verzweifelte Gefangne wurde der Erfinder des 'schlechten Gewissens.' Mit ihm aber war der grösste und unheimlichste Erkrankung eingeleitet, von welcher die Menschheit bis heute nicht genesen ist, das Leiden des Menschen am Menschen, an sich: als die

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Folge einer gewaltsamen Abtrennung von der tierischen Vergangenheit, eines Sprungs und Sturzes gleichsam in neue Lagen und Daseins-Bedingungen, eine Kriegserklärung gegen die alte Instinkte, auf denen bis dahin seine Kraft, Lust und Fruchtbarkeit beruhte. Fügen wir sofort hinzu, dass andrerseits mit der Tatsache eine gegen sich selbst gekehrten, gegen sich selbst Partei nehmenden Tierseele auf Erden etwas so Neues, Tiefes, Unerhörtes, Rätselhaftes, Widerspruchsvolles und Zukuntsvolles gegeben war, dass der Aspekt der Erde sich damit wesentlich veränderte. [...] Der Mensch zählt seitdem mit unter den unerwartetsten und aufregendsten Glückswürfen, die das 'grosse Kind' des Heraklit, heisse es Zeus oder Zufall, spielt – er erweckt für sich ein Interesse, eine Spannung, eine Hoffnung, beinahe eine Gewissheit, als ob mit ihm sich etwas ankündige, etwas vorbereite, als ob der Mensch kein Ziel, sondern nur ein Weg, ein Zwischenfall, eine Brücke, ein grosses Versprechen sei.–65

The intensity of his depiction – the visceral quality with which Nietzsche paints both the

'gruesome unnaturalness' of the human condition and the fascinating spectacle it affords, along with,

finally, the dramatic tension and expectation he brings to the image of an 'animal soul' turned on itself,

taking sides against itself – there is no doubt this intensity is aimed squarely against the kind of account

given by the 'English historians of morality.' The passage above is the heart of Nietzsche's reply to 'dem

Ausdruck einer gewissen gutmütigen und feinen Indolenz' characterizing Rée's envisioned

reconciliation of altruism and the 'Darwinian beast,' and in general to the 'niedrigen Wärmegrade[]' of

the 'English' accounts, a lukewarmness 'den jede berechnende Klugheit, jeder Nützlichkeits-Kalkül

voraussetzt.'66

Intensity of depiction aside, we need to sort through the key elements of this passage. The

central element is of course the radical break Nietzsche sees between our animal past and our social

conditioning, the latter under laws enforced by brutal punishments and a strict regularity of mores. For

Nietzsche, it's clear that the logic of social conditioning is not merely a step further along a progressive

evolutionary path. Viewed from the broad perspective of animal evolution, the switch humans made to

life in settled law-governed societies is a sudden and radical transformation. The first assumption,

Nietzsche says, underlying his hypothesis about the origin of bad conscience is 'dass jene Veränderung

65 GM II:16.66 GM II:2.

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keine allmähliche, keine freiwillige war und sich nicht als ein organisches Hineinwachsen in neue

Bedingungen darstellte, sondern als ein Bruch, ein Sprung, ein Zwang, ein unabweisbares Verhängnis

[...]'67

Nietzsche argues that the first systems of law and punishment were imposed on subjects by

conquering races and ruling classes. The resulting change in behaviour was not brought about by

evolution and adaptation of drives and instincts, but by violent repression and 'internalization' of these

drives and instincts. Nietzsche lists a number of the more brutal forms of punishment and torture from

ancient and more recent legal codes to make his point.68 Thus the second assumption behind

Nietzsche's hypothesis is 'dass der älteste “Staat” demgemäss als eine furchtbare Tyrannei, als eine

zerdrückende und rücksichtslose Maschinerie auftrat und fortarbeitete, bis ein solcher Rohstoff von

Volk und Halbtier endlich nicht nur durchgeknetet und gefügig, sondern auch geformt war.'69 The work

of these early conquerers and rulers is, as Nietzsche sees it, 'ein instinktives Form-Schaffen, Form-

aufdrücken' of terrifying 'Künstler-Egoismus.'70

Under the pressure of the 'hammerblows' of the 'artist-brutality' that forged primitive states, a

'monstrous quantity of freedom' was expelled from the world.71 The human animal's powerful instinct

for freedom was violently repressed and turned back on itself. Bad conscience develops here, according

to Nietzsche, as an internalization of the external forces of repression. 'Im Grunde,' it is the very same

active force at work in forging the state that, under the repression of tyranny, 'sich das schlechte

Gewissen schafft und negative Ideale baut, eben jener Instinkte der Freiheit (in meiner Sprache

geredet: Wille zur Macht): nur dass der Stoff, an dem sich die formbildende und vergewaltigende Natur

dieser Kraft auslässt, hier eben der Mensch Selbst, sein ganzes tierisches altes Selbst ist – und nicht,

67 GM II:17.68 GM II:3.69 GM II:17.70 GM II:17.71 GM II:17.

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wie in jenem grösseren und augenfälligeren Phänomen, der andre Mensch, die andren Menschen.'72

Why does the human being, 'ill' with bad conscience, take pleasure in punishing itself, in

making itself suffer? Out of the same drives and instincts that take pleasure in punishing others, in

making others suffer. Nietzsche concedes that it is now 'hässlich und schmerzhaft'73 for us to

acknowledge such drives and instincts, that it is an 'ugly' truth; nonetheless the history of punishment-

as-suffering, particularly as a form of debt repayment and as a spectacle for celebration and

entertainment, makes clear, Nietzsche insists, that the drive to make others suffer is a deeply engrained

and powerful element of human nature.

There is something uncanny and unnatural in the turning back of this instinct on itself: precisely

this repression and redirection of powerful instincts and drives is distinctly human, is what

distinguishes the human being as 'the sick animal.' The 'joy in making-oneself-suffer' that follows from

this distinctively human repression of nature is at the same time a drive to organize, and to give shape

and form to that which is repressed, i.e., to our natural drives and instincts. Thus the drive to shape and

form character, that is, to impose some organization and interpretation on our natural drives and

instincts, is also distinctively human:

Diese heimlich Selbst-Vergewaltigung, diese Künstler-Grausamkeit, diese Lust, sich selbst als einem schweren wiederstrebenden leidenden Stoff eine Form zu geben, einen Willen, eine Kritik, einen Widerspruch, eine Verachtung, ein Nein einzubrennen, diese unheimliche und entsetzlich-lustvolle Arbeit einer mit sich selbst willigzwiespältigen Seele, welche sich leiden macht, aus Lust am Leiden-machen, dieses ganze aktivische 'schlechte Gewissen' hat zuletzt – man errät es schon – als der eigentliche Mutterschoss idealer und imaginativer Ereignisse auch eine Fülle von neuer befremdlicher Schönheit und Bejahung ans Licht gebracht und vielleicht überhaupt erst die Schönheit [...]74

It thus becomes somewhat less of a riddle, Nietzsche suggests, how 'in widersprüchlichen

Begriffen, wie Selbstlosigkeit, Selbstverleugnung, Selbstopferung ein Ideal, eine Schönheit angedeutet

72 GM II:18.73 GM II:18.74 GM II:18.

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sein kann [...]75 In other words, the historical ground for seeing an ideal in self-sacrifice, self-denial and

altruism comes not from their utility for a more pleasant and happier social life, but from a repressed,

internalized and finally redirected drive to dominate, to shape and control. Nietzsche's account seems to

accord well with at least much of the historical expression and justification of the 'ascetic ideal' that he

is examining here (and then in more detail in GM III). If it's an exaggeration to say that religions are at

bottom 'systems of cruelty,' it's at least hard to imagine any religion completely relinquishing the idea

that sacrifice is an important element of devotion and of commitment to the religion's ideals, however

far removed from the more primitive or brutal forms of sacrifice. Moreover, Nietzsche's account offers

an explanation of how we come to see and feel such personal sacrifice as an ideal, as beautiful, and not

merely as oppressive. Finally, it's surely a fair observation that, where people believe there is a

redeeming meaning and purpose to their suffering, they are far from thinking that, and, more

importantly, far from acting as though, pleasure is their ultimate end. Suffering is everywhere infused

with meaning by religion, and surely religions answer a major need of humans to find meaning in their

suffering, to uncover some justification or purpose behind it. As Nietzsche puts it: 'Die Sinnlosigkeit

des Leidens, nicht das Leiden, war der Fluch, der bisher über der Menschheit ausgebreitet lag – und

das asketische Ideal bot ihr einen Sinn!'76

We might well ask, however, how much the history of self-sacrifice and altruism really matters,

if, ultimately, these qualities do help us live together more happily and more pleasantly? Nietzsche

himself acknowledges that their historical development is often ugly and disturbing. If we now value

such qualities as self-sacrifice and altruism on grounds far removed from their historical development,

why should historical considerations undermine the value we attach to them? We now have before us,

in a broad sense, the grounds on which Nietzsche rejects the motivational utilitarian claim; suppose we

accept Nietzsche's account as more historically and psychologically accurate than Spencer's. Suppose,

75 GM II:18.76 GM III:28.

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that is, we accept that the imposition of law and socialization in ancient times produced a whole new

logic of behavioural modification, as contrasted with natural selection, and that, further, the consequent

repression and redirection of instincts and drives drastically altered the motivational character of

human agency, most notably, by searing into consciousness an awareness of painful consequences and

terrors tied to disobedience and deviance from norms, eventually internalizing a system of repression

and unleashing an 'instinct for freedom' and drives to dominate, organize, 'make-suffer' within this

internal realm of 'animal soul' divided against itself.77 Supposing all that, how do the moral lessons that

Spencer draws, from his own historical and evolutionary accounts, fare if we judge them in light of

these Nietzschean suppositions? Is it so obvious that we will want to reject Spencer's ethical utilitarian

claim, after we dismiss his understanding of human evolution, together with the related motivational

account and vision of utopian progress? Let's take a step back from Nietzsche's genealogical story and

ask how it impacts Spencer's arguments we considered earlier.

First of all, though the language is very different, Spencer and Nietzsche seem to offer similar

diagnoses of current social and moral malaise. As with other animals, in early stages of our

evolutionary history, humans lived according to instinct, having developed drives whose satisfaction

and pleasure were found in those activities that had, on the whole, proved beneficial and healthy for our

biological ancestors. The rise of tyrannical, or 'militant,' societies involved a rigid and violent

subordination of our animal instincts and drives, or 'individual interests,' to imposed social structure

and social roles. Although many of us, happily, no longer live in violently repressive societies, much

77 Martha Nussbaum has argued that Nietzsche's conception of suffering covers only 'bourgeois suffering,' and that he seems to have no understanding of the suffering that, e.g., hunger, poverty or physical abuse involve. (Nussbaum, 'Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche's Stoicism,' pp.139-167 in Schacht, R. (ed.), Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994. See especially pp.156-161.) Richardson (p.184) also draws attention to Nussbaum's criticism. I would suggest that, whether or not that is the case, Nietzsche is here interested in examining the effects of our past socialization, and it is a major element of his account that we have internalized a great deal of repression and mistrust of our animal drives and instincts. Perhaps Nietzsche would have done well to pay more attention to material misery and suffering in his philosophy as a whole, but here his subject matter is precisely the internalization, or 'spiritualization,' of suffering, and its lingering effects in the modern world, particularly in the 'civilized,' or as Nietzsche likes to put it, 'tamed' world.

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social unhappiness and distress linger as the result and expression of the ongoing conflict between our

ancient, animal drives and instincts, on the one hand, and continued belief in the moral values of self-

sacrifice and self-abnegation, on the other, in spite of the gradual disappearance of the social structure

and repressive authority which established these values, or at least of the more brutal enforcement of

this structure and authority.

On each of these points, Spencer and Nietzsche hold remarkably similar positions. Moreover,

Nietzsche acknowledges that, however violent the conflict between those animal drives and social

repression has been in the past, even the relatively recent past, modern man, or the man of European

modernity in any case, now appears more 'civilized,' or 'tamed.' Nietzsche himself marvels at the fact

that the process of forming our social character, of making humans calculable, 'like among like,' has

largely been achieved.78 Nietzsche is naturally less optimistic than Spencer about a final reconciliation

between our animal nature and the demands of socialization – but who could be as optimistic as

Spencer? And supposing much of Spencer's theory of the underlying process of evolution, along with

its utopian conclusion, is mistaken, why should Nietzsche not at least, given the similarity of their

diagnoses, welcome, as Spencer does, a decline in the tension and antagonism between the ascetic ideal

and our natural drives and instincts? If this tension and antagonism, in the form of bad conscience, are a

sickness, doesn't their decline signal better health?

Here we have to recall that bad conscience is, for Nietzsche, an illness 'aber eine Krankheit, wie

die Schwangerschaft eine Krankheit ist.'79 Less metaphorically, Nietzsche thinks that, though the

internalization of drives and instincts, as described above, constitutes the 'anti-naturalness' of human

nature, it is also source of the distinctive dignity and promise of our nature, of the capacity, namely, to

create values, or at least to commit oneself to values and principles, and to form one's character

accordingly, to 'become who one is,' as Nietzsche sometimes puts it. He doesn't think that 'living more

78 GM II:1-2.79 GM II:19.

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comfortably' constitutes any ideal, in the name of which we might celebrate a decline in the internal, or

'spiritual,' tension amongst our drives, instincts and ideals. Thus he continues, in the JGB §225 passage

quoted in part earlier, by noting that he can only look at the 'Naivetäten' of utilitarianism and related

doctrines with pity. Pity, that is, for the 'making small of man,' for reducing the human being to the

pursuit of pleasure and happiness: 'Wohlbefinden, wir ihr es versteht – das ist ja kein Ziel, das scheint

uns ein Ende!' Nietzsche points to the 'Spannung der Seele im Unglück' as essential to developing the

creative power of a human being. 'Im Menschen ist Geschöpf und Schöpfer vereint' and Nietzsche

contrasts his pity for the creator in us with the utilitarian pity for the creature in us.

Nietzsche here echoes the last paragraphs of Kant's 'Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason' in KpV.

We saw in chapter 1 how Kant argues that it is only through the conflict, 'den jetzt die moralische

Gesinnung mit den Neigungen zu führen hat,' that 'allmählich moralische Stärke der Seele zu erwerben

ist.' The absence of such conflict would mean that reason 'sich nicht allererst empor arbeiten darf, um

Kraft zum Widerstande gegen Neigungen durch lebendige Vorstellung der Würde des Gesetzes zu

sammeln,' and as a result, that 'ein moralischer Wert der Handlungen aber, worauf doch allein der Wert

der Person und selbst der der Welt in den Augen der höchsten Weisheit, ankommt, würde gar nicht

existieren.'80

Kant, like Nietzsche (and unlike Schopenhauer), does not argue that the inclinations ought

simply to be renounced, or that they are in themselves immoral. Kant argues rather that they must be

brought in line with the demands of practical reason, i.e., with the moral law. A person's worth and

dignity rest on her capacity to restrain her inclinations when necessary and to thereby shape and pursue

her project of happiness in such a way as not to violate the freedom of others to similarly pursue their

respective projects of happiness. That is, a person's worth and dignity rest on her capacity to form her

character in accordance with a purpose higher than pleasure and happiness, i.e., in accordance, for

80 KpV, 5:147. See Felicitas Munzel, Kant's Conception of Moral Character. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, for an excellent and thorough discussion of character-formation as a central element in Kant's philosophy.

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Kant, with the moral law.

Nietzsche's alternative to utilitarianism will be different from Kant's, since, for one thing, he

rejects Kant's claim that only the moral law can offer a purpose beyond pleasure and happiness.

However, his aversion to utilitarianism is essentially the same as Kant's. Kant argues, at the end of the

'Dialectic' in KpV, that if human beings were so created that our inclinations already conformed to the

moral law – i.e., without our ever having to struggle with and suffer through their conflict with the

demands of morality – then we would be robbed of all moral worth. The human being's highest

vocation is, not to be happy, in the sense of having all her wishes and desires fulfilled, but to shape her

character. This is precisely the point on which Nietzsche insists in pitting 'his pity' for the creator in

human being against the utilitarian pity for human suffering.81 For Nietzsche, the defining capacity and

highest dignity of a human being consist in 'creating values,' which is to say, in shaping one's character

in accordance with one's adopted principles and goals. Like Kant, he thinks that this formation of

character, by its very nature, causes a certain amount of suffering, in restraining, denying and

redirecting drives and desires in line with the guiding principles to which one is committed.

As Kant sees eudaemonism, so Nietzsche sees utilitarianism as ignoring or misunderstanding

the defining human capacity to shape one's given drives and desires through a commitment to values

and principles that will at least sometimes conflict with the pursuit of pleasure and happiness. The basic

point of contention is brought out nicely in the brief reference to Kant that Mill makes in the 'General

Remarks' with which he opens his essay on Utilitarianism. He grants that Kant, through the categorical

imperative, does 'lay down an universal first principle as the origin and ground of moral obligation'

distinct from the utilitarian standard. However, Mill continues, when Kant 'begins to deduce from this

precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be

81 It is not surprising, then, that Nietzsche, drawing an explicit contrast with Schopenhauer, praises Kant's 'low estimation' of pity: 'Ich nenne nur Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld und Kant, vier Geister so verschieden voneinander als möglich, aber in einem eins: in der Geringschätzung des Mitleidens' (GM Preface §5).

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any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings

of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their

universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur.'82

In other words, in spite of Kant's best efforts, any actual duties of morality that he manages to

deduce are deduced, ultimately, from the utilitarian standard and not from the categorical imperative.

That the utilitarian standard is ultimate follows, for Mill, from 'the theory of life on which this

[utilitarian] theory of morality is grounded – namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only

things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any

other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion

of pleasure and the prevention of pain.'83

While Mill's 'theory of life' does not carry the Spencerean evolutionary baggage, it plays the

same basic role for Mill as for Spencer. Mill's 'theory of life' grounds the motivational utilitarian claim

that, in turn, underwrites the utilitarian standard as a normative moral principle, namely, as 'the Greatest

Happiness Principle' which 'holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,

wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness,' where '[b]y happiness is intended pleasure, and

the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.'84 The 'theory of life' is a

factual claim (with appropriate nuancing as discussed in 3.1) to the effect that pleasure and the

prevention of pain are the only ultimate ends. While Mill openly acknowledges85 that there can be no

rigourous deduction of the normative principle from the factual claim, he takes the 'Greatest Happiness

Principle' to be eminently reasonable once we accept the supporting 'theory of life.' Moreover, Kant

himself might seem to bite here, for he agrees with this 'theory of life' at least to the extent that he

thinks all 'material ends' are ultimately given through inclinations and desires grounded in feelings of

82 Mill, p.207.83 Mill, p.210.84 Mill, p.210.85 Mill, pp.205-208.

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pleasure and displeasure, as we saw in chapter 1.

The difficulty with this utilitarian line of thought, however, is the stubborn gap that remains

between the happiness of the Greatest Happiness Principle and the individual happiness that, in line

with the 'theory of life,' each person is presumed naturally to want for herself: the utilitarian standard 'is

not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether [...]'86 Mill thus

argues, for instance, that even if 'it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is happier for its

nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is

immensely a gainer by it.'87 According to utilitarianism, then, we ought to pursue 'general cultivation of

nobleness of character,' even if this cultivation itself must to some extent, or in some instances, oppose

the pursuit of happiness that, in accordance with Mill's 'theory of life,' is natural to each of us.

Moreover, Mill does not think we would be better off, even considered simply each for our own

sake, without a noble character, and that no 'being of higher faculties' would choose to give up her

appreciation for higher pleasures in order to be fully contented by lower pleasures. On the one hand, he

tries to fit this conclusion within the framework of his theory of life by distinguishing the value of

different kinds of pleasure, so that the higher, or intellectual, pleasures appreciated by the noble

character are inherently more desirable. On the other hand, he famously concedes that it is 'better to be

a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.' 88

Most interesting here is Mill's characterization of that distinctive human quality, in accordance

with which the 'being of higher faculties,' in spite of the 'liabilities' of 'more acute suffering' and of a

less easily attained happiness, 'can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of

existence.'89 Of this quality, Mill says, 'its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all

human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to

86 Mill, p.213.87 Mill, p.213.88 Mill, p.212.89 Mill, p.212.

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their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong,

that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.' 90

Here, Kant could well respond to Mill, that, while happiness (or the pleasures of which it

consists) is indeed the only ultimate material end, Mill himself inevitably acknowledges that human

dignity consists in shaping that very happiness, and its pursuit, in conformity with principles. First and

foremost, for utilitarianism itself, is a principle of justice, according to which each person's happiness is

to count equally. Commitment to such a principle clearly does not follow from a 'theory of life'

according to which everything desirable is desirable either as, or as a means to, pleasure and prevention

of pain – especially when the plausibility of this theory of life rests largely on the claim that what is

desirable to each individual is, not so much pleasure and prevention of pain in general, as the pleasure

and prevention of pain experienced by that individual.91

Moreover, Mill adopts a Kantian line in stating that our distinctively human sense of dignity

consists precisely in the refusal – and inability – to be content with a base form of happiness.

Admittedly, the latter is hardly a uniquely Kantian point, but rather acknowledges in a broad sense the

moral significance and importance of shaping one's character according to principles that are (at least to

some extent) independent of one's given desires and inclinations. This work of shaping one's character

in accordance with the human sense of dignity seems to take precedence over an increase in pleasure,

and even over the attainment of happiness at all, if we take at face value Mill's remarks about

dissatisfied humans and satisfied pigs.

3.3 Will-to-power and the sublimation of drives: Nietzsche's answer to utilitarian motivation

Nietzsche, however, thinks that Kant already concedes too much to the utilitarian in accepting

90 Mill, p.212.91 Cf. note 45 above, addressing an important further claim by Mill to the effect that it is also a natural want of every

individual that 'there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creature.'

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that all inclinations and desires motivate through a feeling of pleasure that constitutes the 'determining

ground of choice' in the pursuit of material ends. Kant in a sense (examined in chapter 1) accepts that

the motivational utilitarian claim holds of our sensible, empirical nature, while arguing that there is

another, purely rational aspect of our being, from which springs a source of motivation distinct from,

and capable of opposing, the material ends given through our inclinations and desires. Kant articulates

the significance of our rational nature metaphysically, i.e., in terms of rational ideas, most important

that of freedom, that are independent of the sensible, empirical aspects of our nature. Reason is

practical, or causally effective, insofar as it restrains and moulds the inclinations in accordance with the

moral law. Thus it is through the tension of practical reason with these inclinations that reason is, in this

sense, creative and that, as agents, we form our characters.

Nietzsche, as we saw above, also sees a creative tension as the ground of human dignity. He

doesn't, however, accept the metaphysical account of our creative-formative power as agents, any more

than he accepts Christian theological or Platonic accounts of duty. Yet Nietzsche values the tension

created within human nature by the dogmatic demands of Christianity and Platonism through

repression, redirection and reinterpretation of natural drives and instincts. We saw in chapter 1 that

Kant, on the basis of a similar valuing of formative tension, finds it fortunate that we cannot know with

theoretical certainty the postulates of practical reason. By 'formative tension,' I mean the struggle to

shape one's naturally given drives and desires, in accordance with principles and commitments to

which they do not naturally conform. As we saw in chapter 1, Kant holds that it's not enough simply to

determine the will in accordance with the moral law (let alone merely to perform the actions

commanded by the moral law), since the struggle to develop moral character, in the face of

occasionally recalcitrant inclinations, is essential to moral worth. Nietzsche explains the importance of

formative tension, as he sees it, in the Preface to JGB:

Es scheint, dass alle grossen Dinge, um der Menschheit sich mit ewigen Forderungen

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in das Herz einzuschreiben, erst als ungeheure und furchteinflössende Fratzen über die Erde hinwandeln müssen: eine solche Fratze war die dogmatische Philosophie, zum Beispiel die Vedanta-Lehre in Asien, der Platonismus in Europa. [...] Es hiess allerdings die Wahrheit auf den Kopf stellen und das Perspektivische, die Grundbedingung alles Lebens, selber verleugnen, so vom Geiste und vom Guten zu reden, wie Plato gethan hat [...] - Aber der Kampf gegen Plato, oder, um es verständlicher und für's "Volk" zu sagen, der Kampf gegen den christlich-kirchlichen Druck von Jahrtausenden - denn Christenthum ist Platonismus für's "Volk" – hat in Europa eine prachtvolle Spannung des Geistes geschaffen, wie sie auf Erden noch nicht da war: mit einem so gespannten Bogen kann man nunmehr nach den fernsten Zielen schiessen. Freilich, der europäische Mensch empfindet diese Spannung als Nothstand; und es ist schon zwei Mal im grossen Stile versucht worden, den Bogen abzuspannen, einmal durch den Jesuitismus, zum zweiten Mal durch die demokratische Aufklärung [...] Aber wir, die wir weder Jesuiten, noch Demokraten, noch selbst Deutsche genug sind, wir guten Europäer und freien, sehr freien Geister - wir haben sie noch, die ganze Noth des Geistes und die ganze Spannung seines Bogens! Und vielleicht auch den Pfeil, die Aufgabe, wer weiss? das Ziel.....

Here we come to a fundamental point of disagreement between Spencer and Nietzsche. Spencer

assumes that if we lose faith in the theological, metaphysical and moral dogma that enshrine ascetic

values and duties standing in tension with the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, then we will naturally

come to see that such values and duties are nonsense, and that 'the final justification for maintaining

life, can only be the reception from it of a surplus of pleasurable feeling over painful feeling.'92

Nietzsche does not deny that this utilitarian perspective may gain hold of us; indeed, this is the great

'Beängstigung, mit der sich keine andere vergleichen lässt,'93 against which his philosophy speaks and

warns his readers, famously in his depiction of the 'last man' for whom 'the earth has grown small,' who

no longer knows great hope, great longing or suffering, but merely 'blinks' and claims to have

'discovered happiness.'94

On the other hand, Nietzsche does not think such an outcome inevitable, because the

theological, metaphysical and moral dogma built around the ascetic ideal are themselves the expression

of needs and drives central to the human condition, in particular, to the formative, 'artistic' drive to

92 DE, §10, p.29.93 JGB §203.94 See Z, 'Zarathustra's Vorrede.'

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establish values and to shape ourselves accordingly, both as societies and as individuals. This formative

drive looks also to interpret meaning and purpose into this creative activity, first out of a basic need to

find meaning and justification for our suffering, but also out of a profound joy in committing ourselves

to some such meaning and justification and even in suffering for these, or at least in experiencing some

sense of sacrifice and dedication to our ideals.

Hence Nietzsche's insistence in FW: 'Eine Moral könnte selbst aus einem Irrtum gewachsen

sein: auch mit dieser Einsicht wäre das Problem ihres Wertes noch nicht einmal berührt.'95 Here, too,

Nietzsche is responding to 'diesen Moral-Historikern (namentlich Engländern)' and in particular to the

'Fehler der Feineren unter ihnen,' who uncover and criticize 'die vielleicht törichten Meinungen eines

Volkes über seine Moral oder der Menschen über alle menschliche Moral ... also über deren Herkunft,

religiöse Sanktion, den Aberglauben des freien Willens und dergleichen, und ebendamit vermeinen,

diese Moral selbst kritisiert zu haben.' As we saw at the end of chapter 2, value judgments, particularly

definitive moral or religious judgments as to the highest values or even the value of life as a whole,

must be seen, according to Nietzsche, not merely, and not primarily, as 'objective' truth claims or

epistemological problems, but as symptoms of a certain character, i.e., as expressions of various forms

of health, vitality, hope or illness, decay, suffering, etc.

Beyond symptomatology, however, moral values can also act as 'cure or poison,' and it is this

'medicinal' quality that Nietzsche emphasizes in the FW passage here considered: 'Aber der Wert einer

Vorschrift “du sollst” ist noch gründlich verschieden und unabhängig von solcherlei Meinungen über

dieselben und von dem Unkraut des Irrtums mit dem sie vielleicht überwachsen ist: so gewiss den Wert

eines Medikaments für den Kranken noch vollkommen unabhängig ist, ob der Kranke wissenschaftlich

oder wie ein altes Weib über Medizin denkt. [...] Niemand also hat bisher den Wert jener berühmtesten

95 FW, §345. Similarly, JGB §4: 'Die Falschheit eines Urtheils ist uns noch kein Einwand gegen ein Urtheil; darin klingt unsre neue Sprache vielleicht am fremdesten. Die Frage ist, wie weit es lebenfördend, lebenerhaltend, Arterhaltend, vielleicht gar Art-züchtend ist [...]'

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aller Medizinen, genannt Moral, geprüft: wozu allererst gehört, dass man ihn einmal – in Frage stellt.

Wohlan! Dies eben ist unser Werk. --'96

Nietzsche repeatedly emphasizes this way of questioning the value of morality, i.e., from a

perspective other than that simply of the 'truth' of morality, as the daring and original element in his

philosophy. If all he meant by it were that many people are best off holding tightly to religious or moral

faith, regardless of truth, then his pride would certainly seem misplaced. For as long as religious and

moral doctrines have been questioned, especially as regards their claims of divine or moral rewards and

retribution, there have been those arguing that lack of religious or moral faith will lead to sacrilegious

or immoral behaviour – the implication being that this impact on behaviour is a more vital role for faith

than its being a matter of truth. And such implications had hardly been left merely implicit before

Nietzsche.

Nietzsche's point, however, is considerably deeper than this. He argues that conscious

intentions, beliefs, emotions, feelings, etc., form merely a surface, or a 'skin,' when it comes to any

serious evaluation of the character, significance and aims of our actions.97 The notion that

consciousness gives us the perspective from which the latter can be properly evaluated is a prejudice

that he thinks infects almost all our thinking about morality. This prejudice constitutes the third major

ground on which Nietzsche objects to utilitarianism, though it is not unique to utilitarianism, and it is

usually held only implicitly. It is the mistaken, or at least unjustified, perspective from which

consciousness, or 'ego,' is seen as the centre of the universe, as an 'end in-itself.' This prejudice

underlies the major points on which Nietzsche criticizes Kant and Schopenhauer, though, again, the

prejudice is hardly unique to Kant and Schopenhauer, but goes, Nietzsche thinks, unquestioned in

almost all discussions of moral values. It is a prejudice that makes man into 'the measure of things,' a

view Nietzsche sharply criticizes, as we'll see below.

96 FW, §345.97 See, e.g., JGB §32.

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The point is not merely that we are often mistaken about our intentions and beliefs, or that the

truth or falsity of our beliefs is secondary to the effect that believing has on us. The point is rather that

consciousness evolved as a 'mere instrument' of the body and that the underlying aim and character of

our drives for the most part never rise to consciousness, but rather affect consciousness only to the

extent that this is useful in achieving the aims for which they've evolved. A fear of authority and power

may have evolved as the conscious effect of an advantageous drive to avoid dangerous confrontations,

a love of authority for similar reasons, a sense of pride as the effect of an advantageous drive to assert

oneself, and so on: 'Werkzeug deines Leibes ist auch deine kleine Vernunft, mein Bruder, die du

“Geist” nennst, ein kleines Werk- und Spielzeug deiner grossen Vernunft.'98 Nietzsche argues that our

consciously adopted intentions and moral values necessarily draw on such drives, but deal for the most

part only with their conscious effects. This was the consequence of reducing man to 'consciousness, his

weakest and most fallible organ,' in the fateful 'jump' into law-governed society. The drives evolved

through natural selection were henceforth to be manipulated through their conscious effects, i.e., the

drives were to be redirected by searing basic rules of behaviour into memory, with pain and the threat

of pain as the most effective mnemonic tools: '“Man brennt etwas ein, damit es im Gedächtnis bleibt:

nur was nicht aufhört, wehzutun, bleibt im Gedächtnis” – das ist ein Hauptsatz aus der allerältesten

(leider auch allerlängsten) Psychologie auf Erden.'99

The point, for Nietzsche, is that socialization could not be accomplished, as Spencer believes,

by gradually biologically erasing old drives and developing new ones, but only by manipulating the old

drives, by turning them in new directions, often back against themselves, or against one another. The

locus for such manipulation is consciousness, where the conscious experience of fears, attachments,

pride, hopes, aggression, and all variety of pleasures and pains, provides the ground on which explicit

commitment to, and interpretation of, moral values and religious beliefs develop. But these elements of

98 Z, 'Von den Verächtern des Leibes'99 GM II:3.

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conscious experience are themselves expressions and aspects of drives evolved, not for the sake of

consciousness, but rather having consciousness as a tool at their disposal. For this reason, it's not

enough to give a 'merely psychological interpretation' of our attachments and commitments to values,

ideals, religious beliefs, etc., but we require also a 'physiological interpretation' of these, if we are to

have any reasonably complete perspective on them.

Thus Nietzsche says of the ascetic ideal that the contradiction it seems to present,

'Leben gegen Leben' ist – so viel liegt zunächst auf der Hand –, physiologisch und nicht mehr psychologisch nachgerechnet, einfach Unsinn. Er kann nur scheinbar sein; er muss eine Art vorläufigen Ausdrucks, eine Auslegung, Formel, Zurechtmachung, ein psychologisches Missverständnis von etwas sein, dessen eigentliche Natur lange nicht verstanden, lange nicht an sich bezeichnet werden konnte, ein blosses Wort, eingeklemmt in eine alte Lücke der menschlichen Erkenntnis. Und dass ich kurz den Tatbestand dagegen stelle: das asketische Ideal entspringt dem Schutz- und Heil-Instinkte eines degenerierenden Lebens, welches sich mit allen Mitteln zu halten sucht und um sein Dasein kämpft; es deutet auf eine partielle physiologische Hemmung und Ermüdung hin, gegen welche die tiefsten, intakt gebliebenen Instinkte des Lebens unausgesetzt mit neuen Mitteln und Erfindungen ankämpfen. Das asketische Ideal ist ein solches Mittel: es steht also gerade umgekehrt, als es die Verehrer dieses Ideals meinen—das Leben ringt in ihm und durch dasselbe mit dem Tode und gegen den Tod, das asketische Ideal ist ein Kunstgriff in der Erhaltung des Lebens.100

The psychological interpretation, or the self-interpretation, of the ascetic ideal, 'life against life,'

is 'nonsense' from the physiological perspective. The logic of natural selection is to preserve drives and

instincts that have been beneficial for survival and reproduction, so that from the perspective of this

logic, any wholesale ascetic condemnation of the body, or rejections of its basic drives and instincts can

never reflect any 'truth' about life. As an extreme instance of such disgust with the body, Nietzsche

attributes the following list to Pope Innocent the Third, reflecting on human nature: 'unreine

Erzeugung, ekelhafte Ernährung im Mutterleibe, Schlechtigkeit des Stoffs, aus dem der Mensch sich

entwickelt, scheusslicher Gestank, Absonderung von Speichel, Urin und Kot.'101

Such ascetic hatred of the material world is not, from the physiological perspective, a matter of

100GM III:13.101GM II:7.

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true or false judgments, but a reflection of illness and 'degeneration.' Moreover, given the evolutionary

role of consciousness as a tool of the body, such dramatic tension and conflict at the level of

consciousness are always in part a reflection of the use and function our basic physiological drives and

instincts would like to make of consciousness. This doesn't mean that Nietzsche is proposing a

reduction of consciousness and of the 'psychological interpretation' of values and ideals to brute

physiological drives. However, our basic drives and instincts, by their very nature, make use of

consciousness and the elements of our psychic life in order to reach their ends, and do so in ways that

are not entirely subject to our conscious control or knowledge. As the products of natural selection,

these basic drives and instincts are geared towards survival and reproduction, and the pressures they

exert on consciousness, though they can be redirected and to a certain extent transformed, will still be

felt even when the consciously held ideal is that of independence and freedom from such pressures –

perhaps especially felt in such cases. In the case of the ascetic priest, for instance, Nietzsche argues that

we see how, in contrast to the ideal the priest consciously advocates, basic life-preserving drives and

forces turn this very advocacy and self-interpretation of the ascetic ideal to their own ends, even to the

enhancement of life:

Der asketische Priester ist der fleischgewordne Wunsch nach einem Anders-sein, Anderswo-sein, und zwar der höchste Grad dieses Wunsches, dessen eigentliche Inbrunst und Leidenschaft: aber eben die Macht seines Wünschens ist die Fessel, die ihn hier anbindet; eben damit wird er zum Werkzeug, das daran arbeiten muss, günstigere Bedingungen für das Hier-sein und Mensch-sein zu schaffen—eben mit dieser Macht hält er die ganze Herde der Missratnen, Verstimmten, Schlechtweggekommnen, Verunglückten, An-sich-Leidenden jeder Art am Dasein fest, indem er ihnen instinktiv als Hirt vorangeht. Man versteht mich bereits: dieser asketische Priester, dieser anscheinende Feind des Lebens, dieser Verneinende, - er gerade gehört zu den ganz grossen konservierenden und Ja-schaffenden Gewalten des Lebens.102

That Nietzsche isn't proposing a reduction of morality to the physiological perspective of

natural evolution should, in fact, already be clear from his characterization of morality, in the Preface to

102GM III:13.

195

GM, not only 'als Folge, als Symptom, als Maske, als Tartüfferie, als Krankheit, als Missverständnis,'

but also 'als Ursache, als Heilmittel, als Stimulans, als Hemmung, als Gift.'103 The point is even more

explicit, however, in Nietzsche's envisioned 'redemption' of the history of morality, laid out at the

beginning of GM II. Here Nietzsche presents the capacity to say yes to oneself ('zu sich Ja sagen

dürfen'104), as mastery over one's own will presupposed in the capacity to promise, as the outcome that

would justify the 'entire prehistory' of morality, from the first tyrannical imposition of laws and

punishment, through the 'social straightjacket' of the long period of the morality of mores: 'die

eigentliche Arbeit des Menschen an sich selber in der längsten Zeitdauer des Menschengeschlechts,

seine ganze vorhistorische Arbeit hat hierin ihren Sinn, ihre grosse Rechtfertigung [...] so finden wir als

reifste Frucht an ihrem Baum das souveräne Individuum.'105

The redemption Nietzsche here presents is that of self-affirmation in the successful conscious

control and mastery over oneself, over the flighty, forgetful nature of our animal drives and instincts. In

contrast to the tormented relation to the body produced by the ascetic ideal, Nietzsche's vision here is

of a reconciliation between the demand for conscious control over drives and instincts (a demand at the

heart of the process of socialization) and the bodily drives and instincts themselves. Indeed, Nietzsche

paints his vision of redemption precisely as an incorporation of this demand, its having itself become

instinct in the sovereign individual: 'Das stolze Wissen um das ausserordentliche Privilegium der

Verantwortlichkeit, das Bewusstsein dieser seltenen Freiheit, dieser Macht über sie und das Geschick

hat sich bei ihm bis in seine unterste Tiefe hinabgesenkt und ist zum Instinkt geworden, zum

dominierenden Instinkt—wie wird er ihn heissen, diesen dominierenden Instinkt, gesetzt, dass er ein

Wort dafür bei sich nötig hat? Aber es ist kein Zweifel: dieser souveräne Mensch heisst ihn sein

Gewissen ...'106

103GM Preface §6.104GM II:3.105GM II:2.106GM II:2.

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Conscience, 'hier in seiner höchsten, fast befremdlichen Ausgestaltung,'107 remains, however, the

'fruit' borne of the tree of moral history, which involved precisely the violent imposition of a system of

behavioural selection at odds with the logic of natural selection and with our physiological drives and

instincts. The metaphor of a tree bearing fruit echoes the Preface of GM, where Nietzsche describes the

propositions, affirmations and negations of a philosopher growing together organically to bear fruit,

and asking rhetorically 'Ob sie euch schmecken, diese unsre Früchte?—Aber was geht das die Bäume

an! Was geht das uns an, uns Philosophen!'108 Here, then, is the 'fruit' of Nietzsche's philosophy, a

vision of conscience in its 'highest' form, as that which would redeem and 'make right' ('rechtfertigen')

the distinctively human conflict between our animal nature and the long work of 'shaping ourselves'

through the process of socialization. Nietzsche emphasizes this dual aspect in his description of 'jene

paradoxe Aufgabe [...] welche sich die Natur in Hinsicht auf dem Menschen sich gestellt hat,' and to

which his sovereign individual is the solution, as '[e]in Tier heranzüchten, das versprechen darf.'109

Thus, as indicated briefly earlier, what Nietzsche here takes to be of fundamental value in

human nature is the capacity to hold oneself to commitments and to shape one's behaviour accordingly,

and in general to take over 'from nature' the responsibility of forming oneself, of deciding what goals

and values are going to shape one's being. For, in the absence of this capacity, i.e., in the absence of

will, human nature is little more than a 'plaything of nonsense.' In fact, not only the long prehistory of

the morality of mores, but also the entire modern history of the ascetic ideal finds in the forming and

'saving' of will and conscience its great justification and validation:

Die Sinnlosigkeit des Leidens, nicht das Leiden, war der Fluch, der bisher über der Menschheit ausgebreitet lag—und das asketische Ideal bot ihr einen Sinn! Es war bisher der einzige Sinn; irgendein Sinn ist besser als gar kein Sinn; das asketische Ideal war in jedem Betracht das 'faute de mieux' par excellence, das es bisher gab. In ihm war das Leiden ausgelegt; die ungeheure Leere schien ausgefüllt; die Tür schloss sich vor allem selbstmörderischen Nihilismus zu. Die Auslegung—es ist kein Zweifel

107GM II:3.108GM Preface §2.109GM II:1.

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—brachte neues Leiden mit sich, tieferes, innerlicheres, giftigeres, am Leben nagenderes: sie brachte alles Leiden unter die Perspektive der Schuld. Aber trotz alledem—der Mensch war damit gerettet, er hatte einen Sinn, er war fürderhin nicht mehr wie ein Blatt im Winde, ein Spielball des Unsinns, des 'Ohne-Sinns,' er konnte nunmehr etwas wollen—gleichgültig zunächst, wohin, wozu, womit er wollte: der Wille selbst war gerettet.110

In other words, it's in the capacity to take over responsibility for oneself, for the shaping of one's own

nature and character, that Nietzsche sees the potential for redeeming human nature. (Below, I'll note

how the joy of redemptive self-affirmation, as Nietzsche envisages it, also necessarily involves an

affirmation of the suffering, of the joy in suffering, that accompanies all self-formation.) This emphasis

on 'rising into majority,' into 'adulthood,' as the ground of dignity and the basic task of being human is a

quintessentially Kantian element in Nietzsche's philosophy.

Kant, however, explains the capacity for individual responsibility and self-determination

through a dualism of empirical and noumenal aspects of human nature, while Nietzsche sees it as the

outcome of a historical process of socialization, in the course of which the human being has been

trained, primarily through a mnemonics of pain and punishment, to exert conscious control over natural

drives and desires. On the Kantian picture, rational self-determination must struggle with the

incitement of the inclinations, whose influence in this struggle is felt through the receptivity of our

sensible, bodily nature to pleasures and pains. The capacity for character-formation, for self-

determination, rests of course with the noumenal aspect of our being, with our 'genuine self.' Making

the pursuit of pleasure and happiness into the governing principle of one's will is thus seen, from the

Kantian viewpoint, as abandoning our genuine vocation as rational agents, for the sake of a contingent

receptivity to pleasure, or as putting our rational nature at the service of this receptivity.

Nietzsche also thinks of the process of self-determination as a struggle for mastery over bodily

drives and desires. Rather than locating the struggle within a framework of distinct legislative realms,

110GM III:28.

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however, Nietzsche grounds the struggle in a historical break with our animal prehistory, which

initiated a long historical process of socialization (retraced, to some extent, in the socialization of each

individual), or 'social selection,' the logic of which involved violent confrontation with many of the

typical expressions of naturally selected drives. The locus of conflict between the two modes of

selection is consciousness, in the sense that the aim of social selection is internal conscious control and

restraint of socially unacceptable expressions of drives and desires. As we saw above, Nietzsche, unlike

Spencer, thinks that social selection can only ever layer its own logic over the logic of naturally

selected drives, not actually replace them with entirely new drives. Like Kant, Nietzsche therefore sees

a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, the logic behind the demands of bodily drives and

desires and, on the other, the logic behind the demands morality addresses to consciousness to assert

control and mastery over these drives and desires. This difference will not be erased over time, and

there will therefore always be occasions for conflict between the demands of bodily drives and desires,

and the demands of morality. To this extent, we find a reflection of the Kantian dualism in Nietzsche's

moral philosophy, though with a genealogical rather than a metaphysical, or critical-philosophical,

grounding.

However, Nietzsche's historical account of this conflict, in contrast to Kant's dualistic account,

assumes that socialization must draw on the drives that have evolved through natural selection, in order

to turn these to different ends, and thus to effect a genuine transformation of the drives themselves. In

redirecting and 'repurposing' naturally selected drives, socialization makes use of the naturally selected

drives themselves as its tools, 'turning them back on themselves.' Nietzsche describes this process, as

we saw above, as the 'internalization' of human nature. In other words, the logic of socialization must

draw on the motivational forces inherent in naturally selected drives in order to turn these drives to new

'socially selected' purposes. Such repurposings not only change the direction of naturally selected

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drives, but can, over time, transform the motivational character of the drives, can 'sublimate' the

drives.111 Below I will begin to address what such a transformative repurposing, or sublimation, of

drives amounts to. The notion is crucial to Nietzsche's opposition to utilitarianism in that, first, it shows

the variety and fluidity of motivational forces, in contrast to the motivational utilitarian claim of a

single ultimate end of action. Second, the power to effect such repurposing of drives helps to fill out

Nietzsche's conception of character formation, which he, like Kant, puts at the heart of ethics, in

contrast to the ethical utilitarian claim that places general welfare or happiness there.

It remains an important difference between Kant and Nietzsche, however, that Nietzsche thinks

the process of character formation – both the long historical process of socialization in whole

communities and peoples, and the individual 'recapitulation' of this process – ultimately draws on the

motivational forces of naturally selected drives. Although the character of these drives can be

transformed to a certain extent, the 'long prehistory' of these drives (i.e., under the logic of natural

selection) cannot be erased or entirely replaced. From the Nietzschean point of view, the Kantian

dualism of empirical and noumenal selves fundamentally obscures this point, in wanting to keep the

genuinely moral ground of motivation entirely pure from admixture with the empirical realm.

This focus on history might seem to ignore a more central point of criticism directed by

Nietzsche at Kant, namely, that Kantian ethics, with its focus on pure reason and universality, fails to

account for, in fact even suppresses, the individual, in spite of its guiding concern with the autonomy of

the individual agent. As Richard White puts the point in Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty, it

'became clear to Nietzsche that while his own philosophy was also concerned with the sovereignty of

the individual, Kantian solutions, like the categorical imperative, must entail the complete oblivion of

the individual as such.'112 The two points of criticism are, however, intimately related, since Nietzsche

111 See JGB §2 for Nietzsche's criticism of that 'typical philosopher's prejudice,' the 'Glaube an die Gegensätze der Werthe.' This faith reflects the typical lack of historical sense, as Nietzsche sees it, among philosophers, and their inability to grasp historical change in such things as drives, modes of valuation, etc.

112White, Richard J. Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1997,

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conceives of the individual, in particular the sovereign individual, as emerging from the long historical

conflict between our animal natures and the processes of socialization. In the opening passages of GM

II, considered earlier, in which Nietzsche introduces the sovereign individual capable of redeeming this

conflict, it's clearly the sovereign individual as individual who emerges as the product, the 'fruit,' of the

long history of morality. In other words, it's not that the quality of sovereignty emerges, to then be

claimed by individuals, but rather that the individual is itself 'the most recent creation,' as Nietzsche

puts it.113

While socialization and morality are directed at the 'herd,' the degree of control they help

produce over drives and instincts makes possible the appearance of the individual as the means,

ultimately, for negotiating the conflicting demands of socialization and morality, on the one hand, and

of our animal nature on the other. The possibility of the individual emerges with the insight that the

conscious intention and moral command are but the 'skin,' the surface expression of drives and

purposes working themselves out in our actions.114 Thus Nietzsche argues at the beginning of GM II

that only with the overcoming of the merely moral perspective does the autonomous, 'supramoral'

sovereign individual emerge; this individual has command over its drives and instincts and also over its

virtues.115 (See, in a related vein, GM II:12, where Nietzsche emphasizes the importance for the knower

of 'having power' over one's 'pros' and 'cons.' As the redemption of morality requires overcoming a

narrowly moral perspective, so genuine insight into an object or field of study require moving beyond

the mantra of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.)

It's important to appreciate the connection between Nietzsche's criticism of Kant for lacking

historical sense, on the one hand, and his criticism of Kant for suppressing individuality by focusing on

p.43. All citations of White in the following are given with page numbers from this publication.113Z, 'Von Tausend und Einem Ziele': 'Schaffende waren erst Völker und spät erst Einzelne; wahrlich, der Einzelne selber

ist noch die jüngste Schöpfung.'114See again JGB §32.115See JGB §212. Here Nietzsche is speaking specifically of the philosopher. It's clear, however, that the Nietzschean

philosopher is to be, in the sense indicated above, a sovereign individual, or 'free spirit.'

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pure rationality, on the other.116 For otherwise we risk marginalizing or misconstruing the first of these

points when we focus on the second. For instance, White's focus on the second point leads him to

oscillate between ascribing to Nietzsche a merely mythological concern with the past and

acknowledging that it is a central concern of Nietzsche's to 'come to terms with the past.' White insists

that 'if there is any kind of teleology in the Genealogy, I would say that it belongs to Nietzsche's

counter-artistry, as a strategy to compel us toward the recollection of the master, but always within the

deliberately irreal context of a mythological history.'117 White is surely right to caution that Nietzsche

doesn't believe nature is inherently teleological, a point we recognized above, in noting that Nietzsche's

presentation of the sovereign individual as the redemptive 'fruit' of moral history is at the same time the

fruit and product of Nietzsche's philosophy, and thus his interpretation of (what would redeem) the

past. But recognizing this does not require us to go so far as to say that Nietzsche operates 'within the

deliberately irreal context of a mythological history.'

No doubt Nietzsche dramatizes his historical account in various ways, but we should take

seriously his claim that the facts of moral history need to be deciphered and interpreted. For instance,

Nietzsche's tracing of the etymologies of 'good,' 'bad' and 'evil' in various languages, his analysis of

various forms of punishment and torture previously used as legally sanctioned modes of debt-payment,

and most notably his insistence on the initial violent conflict between processes of socialization and our

animal past, should all be taken as essentially factual claims; if these claims were shown to be factually

wrong in fundamental ways, it would seriously undermine the further claims of Nietzsche's genealogy

as a whole. Naturally, in 'reaching for the future,' Nietzsche, and genuine philosophers in the

Nietzschean sense, reinterpret and thus to some extent 'recreate' the past; Nietzsche's 'genealogy is an

attempt to force the will of millennia upon new tracks by recollecting all that was nonsense and

116Richardson develops a very helpful analysis of the individual, in Nietzsche's sense, as the means for negotiating the conflicting demands of natural and social selection, though not in the specific context of Nietzsche's critique of Kant and Schopenhauer developed here. (See especially Richardson, chapter 2 'Metaethics,' pp.67-132.)

117White, pp.145-146.

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accident in our history and showing how it may be redeemed with the return of the master, or the

sovereign individual, as the fulfillment of individual life.'118 But coming to terms with the past and

genuinely redeeming or transforming it means first of all to grasp it, not simply to invent or

mythologize it. In particular, we should not read Nietzsche as starting from a concern with the

individual in order to tell a story, to develop a mythology,119 that idealizes or seduces to individuality,

but rather as bringing together genuine historical facts (or at least what Nietzsche takes as such) in

order to show us what the individual is, what the individual must be in order to redeem the past and be

capable of self-affirmation.

I agree with White that we have to be sensitive here to the fact that Nietzsche rejects, as self-

defeating, any attempt to conceptually circumscribe or fix some essence of individuality.120 Nietzsche

cannot give his reader any 'formula' for how to be an individual. However, seeing the central problem,

i.e., the distinctive human conflict between socialization and animal nature, to which the individual is a

response, and out of which the individual emerges, gives us at least a general sense of the Nietzschean

task of individual self-formation. White notes that, in his analysis, 'the question of the master's return

becomes equivalent to the question of sovereignty – not within its Kantian context of reason, but in a

broader Nietzschean context of “life.”'121 We can be at least somewhat more concrete about this

'Nietzschean context of “life”' if we attend to Nietzsche's account of the crucial conflict between human

socialization and animal nature. Moreover, we can then grant that Nietzsche's primary focus is

generally on the individual, and that he speaks to his reader as such, without dismissing his discussions

of politics, social organization, educational institutions, etc., as merely so many ways to reach the

118White, pp.147.119I'll ignore here any question of the extent to which this might apply to The Birth of Tragedy; to the extent it does, I think

Nietzsche soon rejects, or at least becomes extreme ambivalent about, such 'romantic' elements in his first book.120See, e.g., White, p.44: '[...] the individual is that which cannot be analyzed, reduced, or repeated in language:

individuum ineffabile est.' As should be clear from the present discussion, this puts the point somewhat more strongly than I think is necessary. In particular, Nietzsche surely allows that the individual can be to some extent analyzed in language.

121White, p.140.

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individual. White seems at times to encourage just such a dismissal, suggesting for instance that 'the

great politics that [Nietzsche] opposes to the petty politics of contemporary nations and states is really

not apocalyptic in any ordinary sense. Nietzsche explicitly disdains the pathos of such poses, and this

suggests instead that he is really concerned with the politics of the individual soul as the highest

tribunal of all.'122 It's not necessary to take these concerns as mutually exclusive, as White's 'instead'

suggests; indeed the genealogical context in which the individual emerges seems to suggest just the

opposite.

Indeed White himself insists that the individual, as Nietzsche conceives it, cannot be taken in

isolation from the world, i.e., cannot be properly understood in merely rational or conceptual terms

apart from concrete (and thus historical, social, cultural) existence. It would seem to follow that we also

cannot isolate Nietzsche's concern for the individual from more traditional political concerns, i.e., with

the social, historical and educational contexts in which individuals live, and in which genuine

individuality can emerge. As White aptly puts the point, 'the achievement of sovereignty cannot be

accomplished by any rigid self-definition; for given the mutual implication of self and world the

individual must simply remain “open” to the empowering forces of life.'123 Again, I think that the

analysis given in the sections above helps to bring somewhat more concreteness to these 'empowering

forces of life,' without submitting Nietzsche's conception of the individual to any 'rigid self-definition.'

Thus, while I agree that an essential element of Nietzsche's criticism of Kant turns on the impersonal

nature of Kantian autonomy, I think that Nietzsche's further criticism of its ahistorical nature is crucial

to making sense of the former.

To return to this latter point of criticism – to the ahistoricality of Kant's philosophy – Nietzsche

views Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the empirical self as sidestepping any historical

analysis, and thus as failing to grasp the context out of which, and in response to which, the individual

122White, p.172. On this point, see especially pp.172-173, and chapter 7 in general.123White, p.164.

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emerges. In other words the metaphysical dualism between the noumenal and empirical obscures both

the actual ground, and the redemptive capacity, of the individual. Nonetheless, it's important to note

that the way Kant bridges this dualism, particularly in the feeling of respect for the moral law, shares an

essential feature with the Nietzschean notion of repurposing, central to the redemptive capacity of the

Nietzschean individual. As we saw in chapter 1, the significance and character of the feeling of respect

cannot, for Kant, be divorced from a unique form of cognition ('practical cognition' of freedom in the

recognition of the authority of the moral law) and will-determination; conversely, such cognition and

will-determination is inevitably accompanied by the feeling of respect, for human beings at least. In

other words, the ground of motivation, as subjectively felt, and the 'commanding thought' of the

corresponding act of will are, if not identical, then at the very least inseparable. This is precisely what

Nietzsche insists on when arguing that you cannot separate the 'commandirenden Gedanken' from the

will, 'wie als ob dann noch Wille übrig bliebe!'124 Again, this claim is central to Nietzsche's critique of

utilitarianism, since the motivational utilitarian claim holds that, whatever the 'commanding thought' or

more immediate motive of choice tied to a particular act of will, the ultimate or underlying motive

force remains longing for pleasure and happiness. Mill argues, moreover, that there is no special tie

between moral standards and the motivational force, or 'internal sanction,' they produce: 'The internal

sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same – a feeling in our own

mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral

natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility.'125

Even Schopenhauer, who holds explicitly to the 'protean' nature of desire, according to which

the same longing for satisfaction and pleasure underlies all particular desires, insists on a connection

similar to that Kant describes between the feeling of respect and the practical cognition of freedom; for

124BGE, §19.125Mill, p.228. Though it should be noted that Mill does go on to argue that the association between this pain (i.e.,

conscience) and the utilitarian moral standard is a natural one, as this standard finds its firm foundation in the social feelings of mankind. See note 45 above.

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Schopenhauer, this connection holds between compassion as, on the one hand, a motivating feeling

and, on the other, as cognition of the illusoriness of individuation. The connection is, again, between a

particular feeling and a particular cognition. Indeed, Schopenhauer often takes this connection to be

one of identity, such that the feeling is simply the cognition in its 'immediacy'; whatever the difficulties

with this identification (explored in section 2.5 of chapter 2), the feeling and the cognition are at the

very least inseparable in Schopenhauer's account of moral motivation and action. For Nietzsche, every

act of will involves a 'commanding thought' which alone characterizes the accompanying motive force,

e.g., the subjective experience or feeling accompanying the recognition that some commanding thought

is authoritative for me, that I am bound by or committed to it. There is thus no such thing, for

Nietzsche, as pleasure 'as such' or any other motive force 'as such' in isolation from the particular

'commanding thought' that rules the given act of will. (This commanding thought need not, of course,

be consciously articulated.)

The motive force behind a given action is illuminated only by that action's commanding

thought, and, together, every motive force and its commanding thought, i.e., every act of will, is, as

such a pair, an expression of will-to-power. In this sense,126 will-to-power is a principle or force of

organization, through which drives are brought together in service of some overriding purpose or goal,

though not necessarily to the exclusion of subordinate purposes and goals. In trying to locate will-to-

power in relation to the conflicting and overlapping orders of natural and social selection, Richardson

contrasts two possible interpretations of will-to-power, both of which seem to have some basis in

Nietzsche's works: first, as a metaphysical principle underlying, and thus prior to, natural selection,127

and second, as an outcome of natural selection,128 through which drives are favoured and selected (up to

126This is the sense I take to be the most carefully thought out, and thus most fundamental, sense Nietzsche gives to 'will-to-power.' Clearly, justifying this claim about such a contested Nietzschean term would require an extensive study of his various uses of the term well beyond the scope of my discussion here. I hope only to make it clear that the sense I am looking at here is at least one important sense in which Nietzsche uses the term.

127Richardson, pp.45-46.128Richardson, p.52. This is the interpretation that Richardson favours, as the most reasonable conception offered by

206

a point) for their ability to coordinate with, or subordinate, other drives, in order to achieve their own

ends.129 I would suggest that these are not necessarily conflicting interpretations, since we can hardly

conceive of any stage of life that does not already involve a fair degree of organization and interrelation

of basic drives – at least of nutrition and reproduction, for instance. And even these basic drives

presuppose in every concrete case considerable organization of organic parts and functions. (Perhaps

the best suggestion here is Richardson's that Nietzsche may conceive will-to-power as a kind of source

of variations over which natural selection takes place.130 I would add only that it is also a source of

variations over which socialization, or social selection, acts, and that, as a source of variations, it is not

directly subject to the logic of either mode of selection.)

I certainly don't intend an exhaustive treatment of the will to power here, but I would like to

highlight a few alternative conceptions of this key Nietzschean concept, in order to motivate the

approach taken here. I limit myself to discussion of will to power in human nature, ignoring Nietzsche's

occasionally broader claims (particularly in unpublished notes) that will to power governs not only

human or animal nature, but the entire organic world, or even the inorganic world as well. Maudemarie

Clark and Bernard Reginster develop intriguing interpretations of the will to power in terms of second-

order desires. For Clark, will to power is a second-order desire 'for the ability to satisfy one's desires,'

i.e., it wills the power to satisfy one's (first-order) desires.131 While this is plausible both as a desire

attributable to everyone, and as an interpretation of the kind of 'power' that is sought, Reginster

correctly points out that this straightforward plausibility is also an interpretive weakness insofar as

Nietzsche presents the will to power as an original and provocative way to capture (an essential

Nietzsche, whether or not Nietzsche himself ultimately preferred this conception to the 'metaphysical' notion of will-to-power.

129It goes without saying that these ends are not consciously conceived, or represented, ends. The outcome of natural selection consists in drives 'plastically-adaptable' to achieving their ends, because these drives are most likely to be naturally reproduced; this adaptability to ends need not involve any representation of ends. See Richardson, chapter 1, 'Biology,' pp.11-66, for a detailed discussion of this point.

130Richardson, p.47; see also p.35.131p.211 in Clark's Nietzsche on Truth and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990. See pp.205-

244 for Clark's detailed interpretation of will to power.

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element of) human psychology and motivation. Moreover, Clark's 'instrumental interpretation' makes

the will to power an unlikely candidate for core principle in a radical revaluation of values. 132

Reginster suggests instead that 'the will to power is a peculiar kind of second-order desire,

namely, the desire to overcome resistance in the pursuit of some determinate first-order desire.'133 The

will to power therefore essentially involves the desire for such resistance, i.e., resistance to, and (at

least occasional or temporary) frustration of, determinate first-order desires. This would help explain

Nietzsche's revaluation of suffering (more on this in a minute), and thereby also the original and

provocative aspect of will to power, as well as clarifying the nature of the power willed as the power it

takes to overcome obstacles and challenges in meeting one's goals. Reginster's position also fits nicely

with Nietzsche's view of happiness as activity rather than state or end point, for the will to power is, on

Reginster's interpretation, 'not the desire for the state in which that resistance has been overcome, nor is

it a desire for resistance alone. It is, specifically, a desire for the activity of overcoming resistance.'134

I resist this second-order desire account of will to power in part because I find it hard to

integrate any such account into the genealogical picture Nietzsche paints in GM. It's not all that clear

where this second-order desire comes from, at least when given in the abstract as a second-order desire

that operates, in principle, over all first-order desires.135 Immediately following the central GM II:16

passage quoted above, Nietzsche calls the will to power an 'instinct for freedom' and an 'instinctive

form-giving,' and argues that the internalization of this instinct is the signal event in the spiritualization

of will to power, in the 'great dice-throw' of human nature. Below I'll highlight certain passages in

which Nietzsche notes that this form-giving drive belongs to every strong instinct, and in which he

again ties this form-giving drive to the will to power. Internalization of the terrifying 'artist-egotism,'

132p.128 in Reginster's The Affirmation of Life, op cit. Citations of Reginster are given with page numbers from this publication, unless otherwise indicated.

133Reginster, p.11.134Ibid.135It's perhaps not surprising, then, that Reginster feels that GM has been greatly overrated in the secondary literature, and

that the notion of genealogy should not guide our interpretation of Nietzsche. See Reginster, pp. 197-200.

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the 'artist-brutality,' described in GM II:17 gathers together the instinct for freedom and instinctive

form-giving in a powerful and fearful combination: 'eben jener Instinkte der Freiheit (in meiner

Sprache geredet: Wille zur Macht): nur dass der Stoff, an dem sich die formbildende und

vergewaltigende Natur dieser Kraft auslässt, hier eben der Mensch Selbst, sein ganzes tierisches altes

Selbst ist – und nicht, wie in jenem grösseren und augenfälligeren Phänomen, der andre Mensch, die

andren Menschen.'136

Nietzsche here expressly defines the will to power as an instinct for freedom that unleashes

itself as a violent form-giving power on animal human nature, particularly on one's own animal nature,

insofar as the individual's instinct for freedom is turned inward. As we saw in the previous section, this

internalization includes, for Nietzsche, the drive to inflict suffering on others, so that pleasure is now

found in inflicting suffering on oneself. But note that this pleasure derives from the instinct for freedom

and form-giving – the pleasure is that of 'the creator' within human being, and the suffering that

Nietzsche ultimately affirms is that inflicted by this form-giving, creative drive. Thus, as we saw above,

Nietzsche contrasts his pity for the creator in human nature with pity for the human creature, precisely

as he affirms the value of suffering, the need for the human creature to suffer under its own form-giving

power as creator.

This characterization of the will to power as an instinct for freedom and form-giving clearly

does not as such rule out its further characterization as a second-order desire for the activity of

overcoming resistance to first-order desires. But I think it's important to keep the former

characterization in mind, because it crucially shapes the notion of redemption in Nietzsche's

philosophy, as I explain (briefly) below. The second-order-desire interpretation of will to power also

threatens to introduce into Nietzsche's account of motivation an element that I think quite foreign to it –

namely, a kind of underlying common denominator of motivation, whereby the agent (or at least the

136GM II:18.

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agent with a healthy will to power) always 'really' wants the activity of overcoming resistance to first-

order desires, although she is also interested (at least temporarily) in the objects of her first-order

desires. This would introduce a structure similar to that we found in Schopenhauer, where the agent

always really wants the pleasure of desire-satisfaction, but must temporarily see more particular aims

as the objects of his desires. To my mind, this in turn threatens to reintroduce a cleft between motive

force and cognition, or between will and thought, that Nietzsche is concerned to eliminate, for reasons

detailed in this section and the following. The same is true, a fortiori, of interpretations that take the

will to power to be a first-order desire for 'power' under some definition of that term.

In any case, for our purposes what is interesting is the notion of will-to-power as an organizing

principle that pulls drives together into a coherent and directed source of motivation, under a

'commanding thought.' This commanding thought need not be brought to consciousness, and in most

acts of will it won't be. Philosophy, however, is, at bottom, the attempt, or a series of attempts, to

articulate an overriding commanding thought, that is, to articulate forms or principles of will-

determination that we ought to adopt, or strive for, or value most highly. Consider, for instance,

Nietzsche's interpretation of the Stoic 'Imperativ “gemäss der Natur leben.”' Nietzsche argues that

behind this imperative lies the attempt to 'Stoicize' nature, i.e., the Stoic's attempt to interpret nature

according to the Stoic imperative:

Mit aller eurer Liebe zur Wahrheit zwingt ihr euch so lange, so beharrlich, so hypnotisch-starr, die Natur falsch, nämlich stoisch zu sehn, bis ihr sie nicht mehr anders zu sehen vermögt, - und irgend ein abgründlicher Hochmut giebt euch zuletzt noch die Tollhäusler-Hoffnung ein, dass, weil ihr euch selbst zu tyrannisiren versteht – Stoicismus ist Selbst-Tyrannei –, auch die Natur sich tyrannisiren lässt: ist denn der Stoiker nicht ein Stück Natur? Aber dies ist eine alte ewige Geschichte: was sich damals mit den Stoikern begab, begiebt sich heute noch, sobald nur eine Philosophie anfängt, an sich selbst zu glauben. Sie schafft immer die Welt nach ihrem Bilde, sie kann nicht anders; Philosophie ist dieser tyrannische Trieb selbst, der geistigste Wille zur Macht, zur 'Schaffung der Welt,' zur causa prima.137

137JGB, §9.

210

Why, exactly, is philosophy the 'most spiritual will to power'? I devote the final pages of this

section to answering this question. First, recall that Nietzsche sees the initial formations of 'state,' i.e.,

early societies under laws violently enforced, as 'ein instinktives Form-Schaffen, Form-aufdrücken' of

terrifying 'Künstler-Egoismus.'138 This form-creating instinct was at the same time repressed and turned

inward in the individual under the constant threat of violent punishment for transgressions of law or

mores. This internalization of the 'instinct for freedom' is 'spiritual' will to power, which 'sich das

schlechte Gewissen schafft und negative Ideale baut, eben jener Instinkte der Freiheit (in meiner

Sprache geredet: Wille zur Macht): nur dass der Stoff, an dem sich die formbildende und

vergewaltigende Natur dieser Kraft auslässt, hier eben der Mensch Selbst, sein ganzes tierisches altes

Selbst ist – und nicht, wie in jenem grösseren und augenfälligeren Phänomen, der andre Mensch, die

andren Menschen.'139 It is 'spiritual,' for Nietzsche, because he takes the 'inner realm' to be the product

of this internalization of animal drives and instincts: 'dies ist das, was ich die Verinnerlichung des

Menschen nenne: damit wächst erst das an den Menschen heran, was man später seine “Seele” nennt.

Die ganze innere Welt, ursprünglich dünn wie zwischen zwei Häute eingespannt, ist in dem Masse

auseinander – und aufgegangen, hat Tiefe, Breite, Höhe bekommen, als die Entladung des Menschen

nach aussen gehemmt worden ist.'140

While the formation of the relatively uniform member of society, 'like among like,' relied

initially on the enforcement of brutal punishments for violations of law and norms, it is fully

accomplished only with the internalization of this 'system of cruelty' and of the repression by which

individuals form themselves into uniform members of society, recognizing and respecting a common

set of laws and norms. As we saw above, it is a basic element of Nietzsche's account that this process of

socializing the human animal involved a great deal of suffering that lingers to this day as a kind of

138GM II:17.139GM II:18.140GM II:16.

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malaise in the continued repression of animal drives and instincts.

The formation of the socialized human being thus involves the control and domination of drives

and instincts in a way that causes suffering. In these circumstances, the belief in some meaning behind

suffering grew into an important need. The history of the ascetic ideal is the history of a struggle to

secure a meaning, a purpose and thereby possibly a redemption, for the suffering of existence; it is thus

the history of a struggle to interpret meaning into suffering.141 The significance and the power of

religion and of the 'ascetic priest' are built on faith in their expertise and insight into this realm of

meaning, and on the related faith in their knowledge of possible redemption from – and through –

earthly suffering.

But philosophy, too, entered the world on the 'leading string' of the ascetic ideal: 'Man könnte

sagen, dass erst am Gängelbande dieses Ideals die Philosophie überhaupt gelernt habe, ihre ersten

Schritte und Schrittchen auf Erden zu machen ach, noch so ungeschickt, ach, mit noch so verdrossnen

Mienen, ach, so bereit umzufallen und auf dem Bauch zu liegen, dieser kleine schüchterne Tapps und

Zärtling mit krummen Beinen!'142 The 'uncanny' logic of the ascetic ideal has always been an intimate

element of philosophy, to the extent that the will to power, the instinct of freedom turned inward,

proves itself – proves, in particular, its power over the meaning of suffering, to interpret and create

meaning for suffering – through its willingness to suffer, to make itself suffer. Nietzsche recalls 'die

berühmte Geschichte des Königs Vishvamitra, der aus tausendjährigen Selbstmarterungen ein solches

Machtgefühl und Zutrauen zu sich gewann, dass er es unternahm, einen neuen Himmel zu bauen: das

unheimliche Symbol der ältesten und jüngsten Philosophen-Geschichte auf Erden – jeden, der

irgendwann einmal einen “neuen Himmel” gebaut hat, fand die Macht dazu erst in der eignen Hölle.'143

Nietzsche, like Kant, does not value suffering for its own sake. By focusing on cases where duty

141See, e.g., GM III:28.142GM III:9.143GM III:10.

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and inclination conflict, Kant emphasizes the need for control over suffering, and for the willingness to

suffer when duty requires, in forming one's moral character. The point is obviously not that suffering is

good as such. Nietzsche may prefer more dramatic illustrations, but the point in the passage about King

Vishvamitra is similar to Kant's: character, in the sense of commitment to certain values and ideals,

acquires strength and proves itself (not only to others, but to itself) precisely where sacrifice is required

to maintain that commitment. Nietzsche goes further, however, or at least is more explicit, in

characterizing suffering as an essential, and in some sense welcome, element in the task of self-

overcoming and self-formation. This characterization is supported by Nietzsche's emphasis on the 'joy

of the creator' in self-formation, by his genealogical claim that this joy derives ultimately from the

internalized drives to inflict pain and to impose will and order, and by his rejection of any fundamental

opposition between pleasure and pain, and consequent rejection of the notion that pleasure and absence

of pain are goods as such.

Although the oppositions of Kant to eudaemonism and of Nietzsche to utilitarianism both focus

on character-formation as the fundamental concern of ethics, we can now also highlight certain

differences in the details of their respective positions. As noted, Kant sees eudaemonism as abandoning

the higher vocation of a human being, by trying to make the pursuit of inclinations – whose motive

force, as Kant and the utilitarians agree, is pleasure – into the highest principle governing choice.

Nietzsche, on the other hand, rejects the very notion of inclinations (or of drives and desires) as

possessing a common motive force in pleasure, or in the pursuit of happiness; as Nietzsche sees it, our

bodily drives and desires have been naturally selected because they strive for particular goals in a way

that has proven advantageous for survival and reproduction. Feelings of pleasure and displeasure can

be no more than 'secondary phenomena' here. Thus, when utilitarianism neglects character-formation as

the ground of ethics, Nietzsche sees this not as abandoning any eternal or 'genuine' aspect of human

nature, but rather as enshrining as the highest ethical goal a siphoning off of pleasure from existing

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drives, as focusing only on the 'secondary phenomena' of pleasure and suffering, while neglecting the

underlying purposes and aims of these drives, and what might be made of them. Hence the usual tone

of contempt in Nietzsche's attacks on utilitarianism.

More important, though, Nietzsche thinks that focusing on pleasure and suffering as

fundamental moral phenomena, or as basic valuational terms, insures that we will miss the genuine

problem of human nature, the uncanny 'anti-naturalness' of an animal that has fashioned for itself a

mode of living to which its instincts are not only poorly adapted, but for which they constitute a

constant threat. Hence his observation that our 'Vorzeit übrigens zu allen Zeiten da ist oder wieder

möglich ist.'144 Human nature is trapped between the logic of natural selection, which has given shape

to our basic physiological drives, and socialization, which has moulded and modified the expression

and, to an extent, the character of these drives. In hindsight, Nietzsche suggests, the radical

transformation of human life that occurred with the formation of the earliest 'states' seems to spell the

beginning of a great experiment, a 'throw of the dice,' in which human being takes the first steps

towards self-formation, and away from being 'ein Blatt im Winde, ein Spiel des Unsinns, des “Ohne-

Sinns” [...]'145

Religion, ethics, philosophy (which Nietzsche takes to be, most fundamentally, moral

philosophy146), in their various guises, are so many attempts to secure the human being against this state

of meaninglessness, by fixing a meaning for what has always been felt, if not articulated, as the

uncanniness and distress of the human condition. As such, i.e., as struggles against the uncanniness of

meaningless suffering, their underlying ideal has been the ascetic ideal:

Das eben bedeutet das asketische Ideal: dass etwas fehlte, dass eine ungeheure Lücke den Menschen umstand – er wusste sich selbst nicht zu rechtfertigen, zu erklären, zu bejahen, er litt am Probleme seines Sinns. Er litt auch sonst, er war in der Hauptsache ein krankhaftes Tier: aber nicht das Leiden selbst war sein Problem, sonder dass die

144GM II:9.145GM III:28.146JGB §6.

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Antwort fehlte für den Schrei der Frage 'wozu leiden?' Der Mensch, das tapferste und leidgewohnteste Tier, verneint an sich nicht das Leiden; er will es, er sucht es selbst auf, vorausgesetzt, dass man ihm einen Sinn dafür aufzeigt, ein Dazu des Leidens. Die Sinnlosigkeit des Leidens, nicht das Leiden, war der Fluch, der bisher über der Menschheit ausgebreitet lag – und das asketische Ideal bot ihr einen Sinn! Es war bisher der einzige Sinn; irgendein Sinn ist besser als gar kein Sinn; das asketische Ideal war in jedem Betracht das 'faute de mieux' par excellence, das es bisher gab. In ihm war das Leiden ausgelegt; die ungeheure Leere schien ausgefüllt; die Tür schloss sich vor allem selbstmörderischen Nihilismus zu. Die Auslegung – es ist kein Zweifel – brachte neues Leiden mit sich, tieferes, innerlicheres, giftigeres, am Leben nagenderes: sie brachte alles Leiden unter der Perspektive der Schuld. Aber trotz alledem – der Mensch war damit gerettet, er hatte einen Sinn, er war fürderhin nicht mehr wie ein Blatt im Winde, ein Spiel des Unsinns, des 'Ohne-Sinns,' er konnte nun mehr etwas wollen – gleichgültig zunächst wohin, wozu, womit er wollte: der Wille selbst war gerettet. Man kann sich schlechterdings nicht verbergen, was eigentlich jenes ganze Wollen ausdrückt, das vom asketischen Ideale her seine Richtung bekommen hat: dieser Hass gegen das Menschliche, mehr noch gegen das Tierische, mehr noch gegen das Stoffliche, dieser Abscheu vor den Sinnen, vor der Vernunft selbst, die Furcht vor dem Glück und der Schönheit, dieses Verlangen hinweg aus allem Schein, Wechsel, Werden, Tod, Wunsch, Verlangen selbst147 – das alles bedeutet, wagen wir es, dies zu begreifen, einen Willen zum Nichts, einen Widerwillen gegen das Leben, eine Auflehnung gegen die grundsätzlichsten Voraussetzungen des Lebens, aber es ist und bleibt ein Wille!148

As quoted earlier from the Preface to JGB, Nietzsche concedes that, as life has become

considerably more comfortable for many or most of those living in the industrialized world, the need

and distress of the spirit, too, have receded. The incapacity to feel any need and distress regarding the

broader questions of life's meaning and purpose reflects, for Nietzsche, a complacency with respect to

the defining human task of character-formation – not to mention, again, the threat that, should

comfortable circumstances in turn recede, our animal 'prehistory' and barbarity may always return.

Nietzsche opposes will-to-power, as the creative force in the organization of drives and desires,

and therefore in the formation of character, to this complacency in a sense similar to that in which Kant

opposes the moral disposition, or the strength of a genuinely moral disposition, to the self-satisfied

pursuit of happiness. One major difference, however, is the 'historical' character of will-to-power. (A

second, related, point is that Nietzsche seems to lack a fixed moral standard, such as that given by Kant

147The longing to be free from all longing is, as we saw, the inner reality of the will for Schopenhauer.148GM III:28.

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through various formulations of the categorical imperative; I will address this point to some extent in

chapter 4.) The will-to-power characterizes an organism's drives in relation to one another, in the way

they cooperate and use one another, subordinate and dominate one another, to achieve their ends. What

Nietzsche stresses repeatedly is that the characters both of the individual drives and of the soul as

'Gesellschaftsbau der Triebe und Affekte'149 are transformed in and through these relations.150 He

stresses the point, because he thinks that deep-seated moral prejudices blind us to the fact that our

'good' or 'higher' drives also have behind them a long history and development, one that is surely

intertwined with our 'evil' or 'base' drives. Our entire psychology thus far has been hung up on these

prejudices so that no one has dared take psychology 'als Morphologie und Entwicklunglehre des

Willens zur Macht,' as Nietzsche does.151 For Nietzsche agrees that a common history and development

of our 'good' and of our 'base' drives is distressing and brings greater urgency and complexity to

questions of character-formation:

Eine eigentliche Physio-Psychologie hat mit unbewussten Widerständen im Herzen des Forschers zu kämpfen, sie hat 'das Herz' gegen sich: schon eine Lehre von der gegenseitigen Bedingtheit der 'guten' und der 'schlimmen' Triebe, macht, als feinere Immoralität, einem noch kräftigen und herzhaften Gewissen Noth und Überdruss, - noch mehr eine Lehre von der Ableitbarkeit aller guten Triebe aus den schlimmen. Gesetzt aber, Jemand nimmt gar die Affekte Hass, Neid, Habsucht, Herrschsucht als lebenbedingende Affekte, als Etwas, das im Gesammt-Haushalte des Lebens grundsätzlich und grundwesentlich vorhanden sein muss, folglich noch gesteigert werden muss, falls das Leben noch gesteigert werden soll, - der leidet an einer solchen Richtung seines Urtheils wie an einer Seekrankheit.152

Thus philosophers have always insisted, '“[...] die Dinge höchstens Werthes müssen einen

149JGB §12.150For instance, Nietzsche argues that under the pressure of Christian repression of sensuality, the drives constituting

sensuality were transformed into love; see GD, 'Moral als Widernatur' §3: 'Die Vergeistigung der Sinnlichkeit heisst Liebe: sie ist ein grosser Triumph über das Christenthum. [...]' Nietzsche reads a similar transformation into Schopenhauer's characterization of the 'release' in aesthetic experience from the pressing need of the will (GM III:8). Michael Gill argues, in The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics, that Hume effects a similar break with his predecessors Cudworth, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, insofar as he abandons the idea that the origin of present moral feelings determines their moral character, and allows that feelings such as sympathy may be genuinely good and moral even if they developed from feelings that were not originally so (e.g., that were instead self-interested and calculating).

151JGB §23.152JGB §23.

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anderen, eigenen Ursprung haben, - aus dieser vergänglichen verführerischen täuschenden geringen

Welt, aus diesem Wirrsal von Wahn und Begierde sind sie unableitbar! Vielmehr im Schoosse des

Sein's, im Unvergänglichen, im verborgenen Gotte, im `Ding an sich` - da muss ihr Grund liegen, und

sonst nirgendswo!”'153 If we accept Nietzsche's charge that this is error and prejudice, then it's one of

which Kant is guilty. From Nietzsche's perspective, Kant has the advantage over utilitarians that he

correctly grasps the fundamental problem of ethics, namely that of character formation. However, he

fails to grasp how this became the fundamental problem of human nature, insofar as he remains under

the spell of the typical philosophical prejudice – the belief that higher values and capacities must spring

from higher, 'pure' origins – which leads him to split human nature into two different aspects (even if

not 'ontologically') that are sources of entirely distinct grounds of motivation.

In particular, Kant, like so many philosophers, lacks the historical sense, 'die Fähigkeit, die

Rangordnung von Werthschätzungen schnell zu errathen, nach welchen ein Volk, eine Gesellschaft, ein

Mensch gelebt hat, der “divinatorische Instinkt” für die Beziehungen dieser Werthschätzungen, für das

Verhältniss der Autorität der Werthe zur Autorität der wirkenden Kräfte.'154 But this is, for Nietzsche, to

lack the very ability to think the history of will-to-power, that is, the history of the relations of drives to

one another, that is, finally, the history of character formation itself, the grasp of which Nietzsche

insists is vital to moral philosophy as the discipline concerned with the self-formation of human being

(both as community or society and as individual). Will-to-power is not simply some process in which

drives or organisms relate to one another in terms of quantity of 'power,' but is rather an organizing

principle through which drives are brought together (in cooperation, subordination, dominance, etc.)

under a commanding thought. The concept of will-to-power stands, in this way, for Nietzsche's

insistence that one cannot sever the commanding thought from the will without doing away with will

altogether. More, will-to-power is then thinking itself, that is, through his conception of will-to-power,

153JGB §2.154JGB §224.

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Nietzsche wants to express and develop the idea that thinking is essentially the relation of drives to one

another:

Gesetzt, dass nichts Anderes als real 'gegeben' ist als unsre Welt der Begierden und Leidenschaften, dass wir zu keiner anderen 'Realität' hinab oder hinauf können als gerade zur Realität unsrer Triebe – denn Denken ist nur ein Verhalten dieser Triebe zu einander [...] - Gesetzt endlich, dass es gelänge, unser gesammtes Triebleben als die Ausgestaltung und Verzweigung einer Grundform des Willens zu erklären - nämlich des Willens zur Macht, wie es in ein Satz ist -; gesetzt, dass man alle organischen Funktionen auf diesen Willen zur Macht zurückführen könnte und in ihm auch die Lösung des Problems der Zeugung und Ernährung - es ist ein Problem - fände, so hätte man damit sich das Recht verschafft, alle wirkende Kraft eindeutig zu bestimmen als: Wille zur Macht. Die Welt von innen gesehen, die Welt auf ihren 'intelligiblen Charakter' hin bestimmt und bezeichnet - sie wäre eben 'Wille zur Macht' und nichts ausserdem. -155

It must be kept in mind, though, that to interpret thinking as the relation of drives to one another doesn't

'reduce' thinking to an interplay of non-cognitive drives. For, as explained earlier, Nietzsche doesn't

think that we can make any sense of the relation of drives to one another, independently of the

commanding thought or thoughts expressed by this relation.

Utilitarianism fails to 'think' will-to-power at all, insofar as it takes pleasure to be a source of

motivation external to any particular motive; to use a distinction first drawn in chapter 1, utilitarianism

takes pleasure to be the common motive force of actions, whatever their motive of choice may be.

Utilitarianism has no commanding thought, as we might put the Nietzschean point. In contrast, Kant

and Schopenhauer give expression to particular forms of will-to-power, insofar as they each articulate

as the ground of moral worth a unique form of willing, in which a distinctive feeling (respect and

compassion, respectively) is tied to a particular commanding thought (cognition of freedom through the

moral law, and cognition of the illusoriness of the PI, respectively). However, they fail to grasp the way

in which such philosophical evaluations are themselves made 'from the perspective of life.' This failure

consists of two main points. First, the motivational character and significance of the morally distinct

155JGB §36.

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feeling are, in the moral philosophies of both Kant and Schopenhauer, to be grounded directly in

relation to a moral idea, or to an intelligible, metaphysical realm. For Nietzsche, this is to ignore the

fact that the motivational character of any act of will necessarily draws on drives and instincts, the

development and history of which shape, at least in part, this motivational character. This is not to say

they determine the motivational character: the will to power is genuinely transformative and can alter

the character of given drives and instincts – but it cannot create them ex nihilo, as it were. Second, Kant

and Schopenhauer fail to see that willing in general involves feelings whose motivational force can

only be illuminated by articulating the corresponding 'commanding thought.' They imagine instead that,

apart from a single uniquely moral form of will-determination, the motive force behind all other acts of

will is ultimately longing for pleasure or aversion to pain. But any interpretation of willing that makes

thinking instrumental in this way – i.e., by holding that the underlying motive force remains external or

indifferent to the motive of choice, the particular goal or purpose – is, for Nietzsche, superficial in

precisely the utilitarian sense discussed above. Any such interpretation fails to get in sight the particular

character of the drives, and of their relation to one another, that are at play in any given act of will.

Before turning, in chapter 4, to Nietzsche's analysis of the will to power in the form it takes as

the 'kernel' of the ascetic ideal and of western morality, it may be helpful to briefly reconsider the moral

philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer from the Nietzschean perspective now developed. In particular,

we can look again at the acts of will that Kant and Schopenhauer take, respectively, to ground moral

worth, considering them as expressions of the 'most spiritual will to power,' as we saw Nietzsche above

considering the Stoic philosophy.

3.4 Kantian respect, Schopenhauerean compassion and the practicality of reason

The ethical utilitarian claim considered at the beginning of the previous section is, naturally, the

central claim of utilitarianism as an ethical doctrine. It is the rejection of this claim, then, that most

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clearly marks each of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as opponents of utilitarianism. The claim,

again, is that happiness (understood in terms of pleasure and absence of pain) is the ultimate good, and

that only the (expected) contribution to (the general) happiness grounds, in the final analysis, the moral

worth of an action, or of an action-governing principle.

As we saw in chapter 2, Schopenhauer's rejection of this claim is somewhat ambiguous. On the

one hand, of the three philosophers we are considering, Schopenhauer tends to depict the sharpest

opposition between virtue and happiness, claiming that they are irreconcilable. On the other hand,

Schopenhauer characterizes the state of the pure knowing subject as a 'redemption' and 'liberation'

precisely on the grounds that it achieves the peace and contentment – in a word, the happiness – for

which every individual longs, but which cannot be achieved through active individual pursuit of desire-

satisfaction.

'Happiness' as it figures in the ethical utilitarian claim must be taken, insofar as Schopenhauer

rejects that claim, to refer specifically to individual happiness. That is, it's only individual happiness

that Schopenhauer sees as incompatible with virtue, not happiness (or peace, contentment,

cheerfulness) as such. Given the utilitarian focus on 'general happiness,' this point might easily lend

itself to misunderstanding. The general happiness of utilitarianism is an aggregate of the happiness of

individuals, not the happiness of any metaphysically higher self. Thus general happiness, in this sense,

remains, for Schopenhauer, as incompatible with virtue as its component parts, namely the happiness of

individuals. An individual's concern for the general happiness, rather than merely for her own

individual happiness, may be a step on the path towards virtue, but as we saw in chapter 2,

Schopenhauerean virtue consists ultimately in renunciation of all worldly happiness, not only for

oneself but for all individuals. (Though, again, renunciation is ambiguous here, because it is attained

only with the insight that pursuit of individual happiness is, in fact, suffering itself. So it is less the aim

of happiness, understood as relief from suffering, than a mistaken means for reaching it, namely,

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pursuit of individual desires, that is renounced.156) Thus Schopenhauer is rejecting not only a crudely

egoistic form of utilitarianism, but any doctrine that lays ultimate moral worth on the pleasure and

happiness of individuals. The happiness Schopenhauer values as a final redemption is that for which

the will-in-itself, grasped apart from all individuation, strives, and is attained only by the allegedly will-

less 'pure knowing subject.'157

Kant's opposition to the ethical utilitarian claim is more clear-cut: his moral philosophy claims a

source of motivation and will-determination, independent of pleasure and pain, in pure practical reason.

Schopenhauer, as we saw in chapter 2, insists that only pleasure and pain can move the will; he makes

room in his moral philosophy for morally worthy actions by allowing individuals to directly feel the

pain of others, and thus, on his interpretation, to intuitively grasp that individuation and individual

happiness are illusions. Kant, by contrast, doesn't think that shifting or expanding the perspective from

which we feel pleasure and pain can account for any genuine moral worth of actions. Moral worth

requires a source of motivation beyond feelings of pleasure and pain, whether these feelings are strictly

our own or shared with others.

Both Kant and Schopenhauer, however, stake their oppositions to eudaemonism on a contrast

between the instrumental use of cognition, serving the inclinations and desires in pursuit of pleasure

and happiness, and a truly independent act of cognition that breaks free from any subservience to

inclinations and desires, though even this act of cognition is itself necessarily accompanied by

motivating feeling. For Kant, practical cognition of freedom is accompanied by the feeling of respect

for the moral law; a genuinely moral action must be done 'from respect for the moral law.' (Technically,

156As noted in chapter 2, Young gives an apt characterization of this situation when he remarks that, for Schopenhauer, 'the altruist acts in the interest of a higher, transcendental self' (p.107), and that 'morality is a sublime form of selfishness, the latter [i.e., selfishness] being the paradigm of practical rationality' (p.121).

157Schopenhauer would likely not agree with the point as stated here. He would probably object, in particular, to any characterization of the redemption attained by the pure knowing subject as the happiness for which the will-in-itself strives. I argued in chapter 2, however, that he is committed, in his positive evaluation of the pure knowing subject's condition, to the valuational perspective of the will-in-itself, even if this condition is reached, as Schopenhauer insists, through the will's self-negation.

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he gives to pleasure, not respect, an essential motivating role in the agent's carrying out the moral

action, but this feeling of pleasure is here merely the effect of determining the will through practical

cognition of freedom. The feeling of respect plays a role in the determination of the will itself, insofar

as it strikes down the hindering influence of the inclinations on the determination of the will by pure

practical reason; see sections 1.2 and 1.3 in chapter 1.) For Schopenhauer, compassion is itself the

cognition, at least intuitively, of the illusoriness of the PI. Kant, on the other hand, prefers to distinguish

the feeling of respect from pure reason's act of will-determination, although neither can occur without

the other, at least for human beings.

In any case, the key point I want to highlight here is that, for both Kant and Schopenhauer, the

motivation involved in morally worthy actions ties a distinctive feeling to a particular content of

knowledge, so that we might say this distinctive feeling expresses a particular (kind of) cognition. We

might also think of any account of motivation that affirms such a necessary connection between a

particular feeling and a particular cognition, and moreover affirms this connection as itself necessary to

produce a particular kind of action – we might think of such an account as affirming the 'practicality of

reason' in a loose sense. I say 'loose sense' because to say that reason is practical, at least in a Kantian

context, is generally taken to mean that reason can be causally efficacious, or at least can be the

determining ground of a cause, independently of all sensibility. Here, in my 'loose sense,' the claim is

not that the cognition in question is necessarily the cause of the associated feeling, but rather simply

that the cognition is essential to the feeling, i.e., that the feeling could not exist in the absence of the

cognition.

Schopenhauer rejects the idea that reason can be 'practical,' because of the Kantian meaning

attached to this terminology. We can summarize briefly what it means to say that, in Schopenhauer's

philosophy too, reason is practical in a loose sense, as follows. There is only one great thought, one

fundamental insight, that Schopenhauer lets go to the essence of will. This is the insight that

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individuation is an illusion, and the feeling that it brings, or rather the feeling that 'intuitively'

constitutes this insight, is compassion, which, when its meaning is clearly grasped, can lead us to

freedom through renunciation of the will. In all other cases, that is, wherever this insight is absent from

the will's striving, any thought that accompanies desire remains under the sway of the principium

individuationis and fails to grasp or express the underlying nature of the will's motive force – such a

thought is merely a tool at the service of the will's striving.

Moreover, it's not altogether inappropriate that we should adopt terminology somewhat contra

Schopenhauer here. For, as I argued in chapter 2, there is serious tension at just this point in

Schopenhauer's philosophy. On the one hand, the fundamental insight into the illusoriness of the

principium individuationis, and thus into the underlying reality of the will's primal unity, is the point at

which knowing subject and will first truly coincide. In compassion, that which is felt at the same time

expresses the knowledge that belongs uniquely to the perspective of the pure knowing subject, which

perspective underlies the very possibility of compassion. On the other hand, this is also precisely the

point at which Schopenhauer locates the dissolution of knowing subject and will. Given the discussion

in chapter 2, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Schopenhauer's philosophy, particularly his account of

motivation, runs into difficulty here. After all, he posits knowing and willing as two heterogeneous

elements of our being, and yet the feeling of compassion, in contrast to all other modifications of

desiring will, immediately expresses fundamental cognition of the will's inner reality. Hence the

paradox of WWR Book 4: the will's fullest self-knowing is at the same time a knowing completely free

from will.

Although Schopenhauer might not approve, I think that recognizing a practicality of reason here

helps lessen the paradox. For when the will attains genuine self-knowledge, knowing is liberated from

service to desiring will – not because desire has disappeared, but because the motive force of desire is

no longer external to knowing. The will's attainment of self-knowledge, as Schopenhauer presents it,

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brings with it a certain power over desire and motivation, or in any case effects a certain transformation

in the character of desire's motive force.

Along these lines, Nietzsche offers a diagnosis of the philosophical difficulties presented by

Schopenhauer's 'pure knowing subject,' insofar as he replaces Schopenhauer's own interpretation of the

pure knowing subject as release from the will – based on the heterogeneity of willing and knowing –

with an interpretation in terms of will-to-power in the sense discussed in 3.3 above. Schopenhauer

explains aesthetic experience as the temporary release from willing, which can only be permanently

attained through renunciation of the will, as we saw in section 2.4, chapter 2. Nietzsche notes first that

Schopenhauer sticks to the 'Kantian formula' according to which the beautiful, in aesthetic experience,

pleases 'without interest.'158 Nietzsche argues that Schopenhauer's understanding of aesthetic experience

was nonetheless very different from Kant's and that he could only keep to this Kantian formula by

attaching to it a different meaning. In particular, Nietzsche asks whether we might not object that

Schopenhauer 'ganz und gar nicht die Kantsche Definition des Schönen Kantisch verstanden habe—

dass auch ihm das Schöne aus einem “Interesse” gefalle, sogar aus dem allerstärksten,

allerpersönlichsten Interesse: dem des Torturierten, der von seiner Tortur loskommt.'159

We might think that Nietzsche here drifts merely into musing about Schopenhauer's personal

character and temperament. Noting the 'vehemence' with which Schopenhauer at times describes the

urgency and pressure of willing, and recommending that we keep in mind that WWV is the work of a

young man, Nietzsche suggests, for instance, that we might be tempted to ask 'ob nicht seine

Grundkonzeption von “Willen und Vorstellung,” der Gedanke, dass es eine Erlösung vom “Willen”

einzig durch die “Vorstellung” geben könne, aus einer Verallgemeinerung jener Sexual-Erfahrung ihren

Ursprung genommen habe.'160 Or, again, Nietzsche asks the reader not to become 'gloomy' at the

158GM III:6. As Nietzsche puts it, '“Schön ist,” hat Kant gesagt, “was ohne Interesse gefällt.”159GM III:6.160GM III:6.

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mention of 'torture,' for in Schopenhauer's case there is 'much to be valued' in it, even to be 'laughed at';

we should not underestimate, namely, 'dass Schopenhauer, der die Geschlechtlichkeit in der Tat als

persönlichen Feind behandelt hat (einbegriffen deren Werkzeug, das Weib, dieses “instrumentum

diaboli”), Feinde nötig hatte, um guter Dinge zu bleiben; dass er die grimmigen galligen

schwarzgrünen Worte liebte; dass er zürnte, um zu zürnen, aus Passion; dass er krank geworden wäre,

Pessimist geworden wäre (—denn er war es nicht, so sehr er es auch wünschte) ohne seine Feinde,

ohne Hegel, das Weib, die Sinnlichkeit und den ganzen Willen zum Dasein, Dableiben.'161

Whatever we might think of these musings, it's important to note that Nietzsche himself

dismisses their philosophical importance. After cataloguing Schopenhauer's need for enemies,

Nietzsche continues: 'So viel in Hinsicht auf das Persönlichste am Fall Schopenhauers; andrerseits ist

an ihm noch etwas Typisches—und hier erst kommen wir wieder auf unser Problem.'162 This distinction

between what is merely personal, or idiosyncratic, and what is typical in the experience of a

philosopher is a crucial one for Nietzsche; it is precisely a distinction that he thinks philosophers,

including Kant and Schopenhauer, fail to fully draw in their own case. They lack the historical sense to

analyze their own moral conceptions, desires, ideals against a broader background of historical

development, in order to sift out the idiosyncratic and isolate the typical in their experience. Indeed

Nietzsche notes generally how little it has always taken 'um den Grundstein zu solchen erhabenen und

unbedingten Philosophen-Bauwerken abzugeben, welche die Dogmatiker bisher aufbauten, - irgend ein

Volks-Aberglaube aus unvordenklicher Zeit (wie der Seelen-Aberglaube, der als Subjekt- und Ich-

Aberglaube auch heute noch nicht aufgehört hat, Unfug zu stiften), irgend ein Wortspiel vielleicht, eine

Verführung von Seiten der Grammatik her oder eine verwegene Verallgemeinerung von sehr engen,

sehr persönlichen, sehr menschlich-allzumenschlichen Thatsachen.'163 In this respect, Nietzsche

161GM III:7.162GM III:7.163JGB Preface. Cf. JGB §26 for a general statement of Nietzsche's philosophical interest in the 'rule' as opposed to the

'exception': 'Das Studium des durchschnittlichen Menschen, lang, ernsthaft, und zu diesem Zwecke viel Verkleidung,

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complains especially of the 'English moral psychologists,' that 'ihnen der historische Geist selber

abgeht, dass sie gerade von allen guten Geistern der Historie selbst im Stich gelassen worden sind! Sie

denken allesamt, wie es nun einmal alter Philosophen-Brauch ist, wesentlich unhistorisch; daran ist

kein Zweifel.'164 They know only a short span of time, a few generations at most, Nietzsche claims, and

therefore completely misunderstand their subject. Thus Nietzsche devotes much of the first essay of

GM, for instance, to tracing the etymology of terms for 'good,' 'evil' and 'bad' in German, Latin and

Greek, insisting that here we can gain real insight into the genealogy of morals, and that this insight

reveals the untenability of the 'English' hypotheses.

Returning to Schopenhauer, then, and what is 'typical' in his praise of the aesthetic experience as

a liberation from the will, Nietzsche points to 'eine eigentliche Philosophen-Gereiztheit und -Ranküne

gegen die Sinnlichkeit,'165 that has always belonged to philosophy and philosophers. Nietzsche argues

that, at bottom, the philosophers' bias and affection for the ascetic ideal is a matter of striving for

independence from unruly desires, from an excitable or irritable sensibility, from whatever stands in the

way of an 'Optimum von günstigen Bedingungen, unter denen es seine Kraft ganz herauslassen kann

und sein Maximum im Machtgefühl erreicht.'166 'Es sind im asketischen Ideale so viele Brücken zur

Unabhängigkeit angezeigt' is the lesson Nietzsche really wants to draw, as that which is 'typical' in the

case of Schopenhauer:

Was bedeutet demnach das asketische Ideal bei einem Philosophen? Meine Antwort ist—man wird es längst erraten haben: der Philosoph lächelt bei seinem Anblick einem Optimum der Bedingungen höchster und kühnster Geistigkeit zu—er verneint

Selbstüberwindung, Vertraulichkeit, schlechter Umgang - jeder Umgang ist schlechter Umgang ausser dem mit Seines-Gleichen -: das macht ein nothwendiges Stück der Lebensgeschichte jedes Philosophen aus, vielleicht.' See also Nietzsche's dismissal of the philosophers' methods, in contrast to those of the ascetic priest, to deaden or overcome pain: 'Ich lasse hier, wie billig, den eigentlichen Philosophen-Kampf gegen das Unlustgefühl, der immer gleichzeitig zu sein pflegt, ganz beiseite—er ist interessant genug, aber zu absurd, zu praktisch-gleichgültig, zu spinneweberisch und eckensteherhaft, etwa wenn der Schmerz als ein Irrtum bewiesen werden soll, unter der naiven Voraussetzung, dass der Schmerz schwinden müsse, wenn erst der Irrtum in ihm erkannt ist—aber siehe da! er hütete sich, zu schwinden . . .' (GM III:17).

164GM I:2.165GM III:7.166GM III:7.

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nicht damit "das Dasein," er bejaht darin vielmehr sein Dasein und nur sein Dasein, und dies vielleicht bis zu dem Grade, dass ihm der frevelhafte Wunsch nicht fern bleibt: pereat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat philosophus, fiam!—167

Nietzsche insists that, properly understood, this striving for independence from and mastery

over one's sensible constitution (as when philosophers 'einem unbändigen und reizbaren Stolze oder

einer mutwilligen Sinnlichkeit Zügel anzulegen hatte oder dass sie ihren Willen zur “Wüste” vielleicht

gegen einen Hang zum Luxus und zum Ausgesuchtesten, insgleichen gegen eine verschwenderische

Liberalität mit Herz und Hand'168) is not a matter of virtue, as though the immorality of sensible desires

and inclinations were its motivating force and justification. Rather it's a matter of a dominant instinct

gathering together and turning everything to its purpose, an instinct that 'alles, Zeit, Kraft, Liebe,

Interesse nur dafür sammelt, nur dafür aufspart.'169 Nietzsche calls it the '“mütterlicher” Instinkt [...] der

hier zum Vorteil des werdenden Werkes rücksichtslos über alle sonstigen Vorräte und Zuschüsse von

Kraft, von vigor des animalen Lebens verfügt: die grössere Kraft verbraucht dann die kleinere.'170 This

creative drive, or motherly instinct, is the expression of will-to-power, as interpreted in section 3.3

above; it's the power to organize a variety of subordinate drives and instincts under a 'commanding

thought.' Schopenhauer's presentation of aesthetic experience as a liberation from the will is an

example of philosophy as 'the most spiritual will to power,' and Nietzsche emphasizes in particular to

power to transform the character of the subordinate drives and instincts that are here made to serve the

dominant instinct:

Man lege sich übrigens den oben besprochnen Fall Schopenhauers nach dieser Interpretation zurecht: der Anblick des Schönen wirkte offenbar bei ihm als auslösender Reiz auf die Hauptkraft seiner Natur (die Kraft der Besinnung und des vertieften Blicks); so dass diese dann explodierte und mit einem Male Herr des Bewusstseins wurde. Damit soll durchaus die Möglichkeit nicht ausgeschlossen sein, dass jene eigentümliche Süssigkeit und Fülle, die dem ästhetischen Zustande eigen ist, gerade von der Ingredienz "Sinnlichkeit" ihre Herkunft nehmen könnte (wie aus

167GM III:7.168GM III:8.169GM III:8.170GM III:8.

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derselben Quelle jener "Idealismus" stammt, der mannbaren Mädchen eignet)—dass somit die Sinnlichkeit beim Eintritt des ästhetischen Zustandes nicht aufgehoben ist, wie Schopenhauer glaubt, sondern sich nur transfiguriert und nicht als Geschlechtsreiz mehr ins Bewusstsein tritt.171

Again, the value of Nietzsche's discussion here must be sought in the general points he wants to

make about philosophy, the ascetic ideal and the will to power, rather than in the personal remarks

about Schopenhauer himself. The ascetic ideal is, for the philosopher, a means to the maximum

expression of power, and here Nietzsche interprets this general point in relation to Schopenhauer's

philosophy in particular. Nietzsche interprets the Schopenhauerean experience of joy and redemption in

'release from will' as won through the transformative capacity of the will to power deploying the ascetic

ideal to repress and ultimately redirect drives that were a source of 'torture' for Schopenhauer.

Nietzsche interprets, that is, Schopenhauer's articulation of his philosophical ideal as a genuine

expression of the will to power's transformative capacity; only the will to power here misunderstands

itself, articulating the transformation in terms of a metaphysical divide that opposes 'this-worldly'

pursuit of pleasure and happiness to an 'other-worldly' renunciation of will and desire. From Nietzsche's

perspective, Schopenhauer here lacks the historical sense for evaluating the acts of will and the

transformation of drives to which his own philosophy assigns the highest moral values. Schopenhauer

interprets them rather in terms simply of his own experience of 'salvation,' of release from torture.

What the philosopher ought to do, according to Nietzsche, is to interpret such experiences in

terms of a genealogy of drives and values, in order to have some perspective on just what is working

itself out in his or her own experience – always under the 'perspective of life,' for merely projecting

values into a 'beyond,' severed from the empirical realm and one's sensible constitution, lends no

insight into that which is gathered together and transformed in them. Thus Nietzsche insists, in closing

GM I, that every table of values requires first a physiological interpretation. (But note that he

171GM III:8.

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immediately adds that such a physiological interpretation is merely preparatory for the philosopher's

task, which is 'to determine the order of rank among values.') In GM III:13, Nietzsche gives, as we saw,

a physiological interpretation of the ascetic ideal. The 'merely psychological' interpretation, by contrast,

is the 'self-interpretation' of the ideal, i.e., how it addresses itself to consciousness, its moral

interpretation, we might say.

The self-interpretation of moral ideals that Nietzsche is here criticizing relies on a projection

into a metaphysical realm that is 'beyond' in the sense of being independent from the sensible world, in

particular from the body. For Nietzsche, this projection is at bottom simply the expression of a(n

unhealthy) longing to free the perspective of consciousness (or 'ego' or 'spirit') from any dependence on

the body, and thus to deny that valuing a moral ideal has its ground in the valuing perspective of the

body. Such a projection is the expression, then, of the longing 'nach einem Anders-sein, Anderswo-

sein.'172

Thus Schopenhauer develops his conception of a pure knowing subject in order to interpret his

aesthetic experience as a complete liberation from the body and all its desires. As we saw in 2.5, this

interpretation runs into difficulty because the positive value attached to the pure knowing subject's state

of liberation is grounded in the perspective of the same desiring will that expresses itself in all bodily

desires, that is, a desiring will conceived of as lack, as suffering, as longing for release from willing

itself. But this conception of desire is itself just the expression of suffering grounded in the body; as

Zarathustra puts it, recalling a distinctly Schopenhauerean phase:

Einst warf auch Zarathustra seinen Wahn jenseits des Menschen, gleich allen Hinterweltlern. Eines leidenden und zerquälten Gottes Werk schien mir da die Welt. [...]Ach, ihr Brüder, dieser Gott, den ich schuf, war Menschen-Werk und -Wahnsinn, gleich allen Göttern!Mensch war er, und nur ein armes Stück Mensch und Ich: aus der eigenen Asche und Gluth kam es mir, dieses Gespenst, und wahrlich! Nicht kam es mir von Jenseits! [...]

172GM III:13. See also GD 'Moral als Widernatur,' and 'Die Vernunft in der Philosophie'; Z 'Von den Hinterweltlern.'

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Glaubt es mir, meine Brüder! Der Leib war's, der am Leibe verzweifelte, - der tastete mit den Fingern des bethörten Geistes an die letzten Wände.Glaubt es mir, meine Brüder! Der Leib war's, der an der Erde verzweifelte, - der hörte den Bauch des Seins zu sich reden.Und da wollte er mit dem Kopfe durch die letzten Wände, und nicht nur mit dem Kopfe, - hinüber zu 'jener Welt.'173

This attempt to shift the centre of gravity outside of life, in order to judge in accordance with

values that are supposedly independent of the body and of this empirical, sensible world, is what

Nietzsche criticizes as the attempt to make 'man the measure of things,' a criticism I take up again in

the next chapter. Admittedly, though, Nietzsche sometimes expresses himself in ways that seem to

contradict this criticism. In the same passage from Zarathustra that we're considering here, he

continues:

Ja, dies Ich und des Ich's Widerspruch und Wirrsal redet noch am redlichsten von seinem Sein, dieses schaffende, wollende, werthende Ich, welches das Maass und der Werth der Dinge ist.

However, the context makes clear in which sense Nietzsche (or Zarathustra) does not mean that

the 'creating, willing, valuing I' is the 'measure and value of things.' Throughout the passage,

Zarathustra is arguing that, through the values it creates, the 'I' always expresses the body (of which, it

is important to note, the 'I' is a part and not merely 'epiphenomenal'174). The interpretation of values

which the 'I' itself gives is clearly not the measure of things; rather only insofar as the 'I' necessarily

expresses values that have their ground in the needs, the longing, the suffering, the hope – i.e., in the

valuational perspective – of the body, is the 'I' the measure and value of things. But the human being

cannot carry the valuational perspective of his body outside of life, outside this world, and therefore

cannot become the measure of things in the superlative metaphysical sense. Rather, as Nietzsche

expresses it in the passage from GD quoted at the end of section 2.5 in chapter 2, 'life values through us

when we value.' There is no contradiction in saying that all values enter the world through the

173Z I, 'Von den Hinterweltlern.'174Apart from the passage under consideration, see also, e.g., Z I, 'Von den Verächtern des Leibes,' JGB, §12.

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valuational perspective of human beings (or, generally, of living creatures) while insisting that we are

nonetheless not the measure of things. For our own valuational perspectives are grounded in this

sensible world, in the body in particular, and thus constrained by the 'perspective of life.' There is

therefore a less and a more honest way for the 'I' to express itself as 'the measure and value of things':

Und dieses redlichste Sein, das Ich - das redet vom Leibe, und es will noch den Leib, selbst wenn es dichtet und schwärmt und mit zerbrochnen Flügeln flattert.Immer redlicher lernt es reden, das Ich: und je mehr es lernt, um so mehr findet es Worte und Ehren für Leib und Erde. [...]Vieles krankhafte Volk gab es immer unter Denen, welche dichten und gottsüchtig sind; wüthend hassen sie den Erkennenden und jene jüngste der Tugenden, welche heisst: Redlichkeit. [...]Wahrlich nicht an Hinterwelten und erlösende Blutstropfen: sondern an den Leib glauben auch sie am besten, und ihr eigener Leib ist ihnen ihr Ding an sich.Aber ein krankhaftes Ding ist er ihnen: und gerne möchten sie aus der Haut fahren. Darum horchen sie nach den Predigern des Todes und predigen selber Hinterweltern.175

When the self-interpretation of moral ideals projects its values into a realm of 'things-in-themselves,' it

is, in reality, the perspective of the body itself that is projected into this realm, the body disguised as

'Ding an sich.'

Nietzsche's criticism of moral values posited as independent of the body does not leave him

reducing moral values to 'mere bodily' drives and desires. That might be the case, were Nietzsche

arguing that the 'I' – or consciousness, or ego – is mere epiphenomenon and medium for expressing

drives and instincts whose characters remain always independent of the activity of the ego. However,

the self-interpretation of moral values, the way they are addressed to and interpreted by the ego, is also

the expression of will to power as an organizing and transformative principle that strives to bring

various drives and instincts, even the organism and its life as a whole, under commanding thoughts that

express a 'rank order' among the drives and instincts.

Nietzsche reads Schopenhauer's ideal of renunciation and self-abnegation, as we saw above in

relation to Schopenhauer's interpretation of aesthetic experience, as expressing a genuine triumph of

175Z I, 'Von den Hinterweltlern'

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the will to power, insofar as the experience involves an organizing, redirecting and focusing of unruly

and painful drives for a purpose in which these can be expressed with a maximum sense of power and

redemption. The experience involves a profound personal insight on the part of Schopenhauer into the

'order of rank' among his drives, his needs and desires. Schopenhauer, however, lacked the

philosophical insight, in Nietzsche's opinion, to distinguish what was personal and idiosyncratic in the

experience, from that which might apply more generally. He lacked the historical sense for grasping the

more general meaning of the drives and needs, and the tension experienced amongst them. As we'll see

in chapter 4, Nietzsche prides himself, as a philosopher, on having just such an historical sense.

Nietzsche does not engage so deeply in polemic with Kant as he does with Schopenhauer.

Nonetheless, I think the general point of criticism raised here against Schopenhauer would count also,

from Nietzsche's perspective, against Kant. Kant's moral philosophy, like Schopenhauer's, introduces a

unique motivational pairing of feeling (respect) with a 'practical cognition' (of the authority of the

moral law) that grounds the moral dignity and the higher self of a human being (where 'higher' means,

among other things, beyond the merely utilitarian or eudaemonistic pursuit of happiness). Like

Schopenhauer, Kant interprets this unique ground of motivation in essentially metaphysical terms, in

contrast to historical or genealogical terms. Thus, while Kant's own temperament and personality may

not come to the fore here in the way Schopenhauer's seem to in his presentation, Kant nonetheless

neglects the kind of genealogical analysis which Nietzsche urges to sift through personal experience in

order to extract what is general or typical, or at least instructive for the general case. Kant's articulation

of the moral ideal thus remains merely 'self-interpretation' and does not properly locate this ideal in the

context of the defining crisis of human nature – our being trapped, as it were, between the logic of

natural selection and that of socialization. In chapter 4, I will consider Nietzsche's genealogical method

of interpreting and shaping personal experience against the 'grey' background of historical fact.

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Conclusion

The guiding purpose of this thesis has been to examine the dynamic between Kant,

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in terms of the opposition to eudaemonism/utilitarianism each develops in

his respective moral philosophy. With the end of chapter 3, this main task has now been completed. The

central contention is that the dynamic between the three revolves around the conceptions of desires and

inclinations within their respective accounts of motivation. The perhaps surprising conclusion is that, in

his rejection of utilitarianism, Nietzsche holds a position close to that held by Kant in his rejection of

eudaemonism: both stake their oppositions on the foundational role of character-formation in the moral

development of human beings. The Kantian dualisms, however, together with the attempt to locate the

inclinations in a mechanical-Newtonian empirical realm, leave Kant vulnerable to some elements of

Schopenhauer's criticism. In particular, the causally deterministic conception of the inclinations

adopted (ambiguously) by Kant, and the causally deterministic conception of desires adopted

(unambiguously) by Schopenhauer, with both conceptions drawing on pleasure and pain as basic

sources of motivation, lead naturally to the 'cosmic eudaemonism' developed by Schopenhauer. (See

chapter 2, section 2.4.4.) In other words, Kant has to struggle against (one half of) his own conception

of the inclinations in trying to articulate his opposition to eudaemonism.

The situation is reversed, in a sense, when we look at the moral philosophies of Spencer and

Nietzsche, at least if we accept the 'first presupposition' of Nietzsche's genealogy of bad conscience,

namely, that the founding of early societies under the rule of law marked a radical break with our

animal past. According to this presupposition, the process of socialization modifies the expression of

drives and instincts according to a logic quite different from the evolutionary process of selecting

drives and instincts. The dynamic between these two processes – of natural selection and of

socialization – does not support a conception of drives and desires all aiming ultimately at pleasure and

happiness. Here, then, it is Spencer who must struggle, in order to maintain the utilitarian perspective,

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against the conception of desire that seems more naturally to arise from the evolutionary and historical

approach he himself adopts. Spencer ultimately stays grounded in the utilitarian perspective only by

insisting that social development follows the same logic as natural selection (and, ultimately, by

assuming somewhat fantastically that this logic is itself grounded in the necessary progress of the

universe towards a state of perfection, including 'absolute' happiness for human society).

Nietzsche develops his picture of our evolutionary and social history in order to impress upon

the reader how inadequate the utilitarian perspective is both factually, as to the actual character of

motivation in the drives and desires produced through evolution and socialization, and as a moral

philosophy, in responding to the spiritual and moral needs of human beings. An especially important

need is to find a meaning and purpose for the suffering and longing that inevitably enter every

individual's life in some form or other. Nietzsche and Kant both hold that (at least part of) the suffering

and longing that inevitably enter an individual's life ought to play an important role in her formation of

character, and that they can do so by being subsumed under, or deployed by, guiding moral principles

or 'commanding thoughts.' In other words, one essential function of moral principles, insofar as they

command certain courses of action that go against the wishes and happiness of the agent, is precisely to

give direction, meaning and purpose to suffering. Moral principles are therefore also principles of

character-formation, since a considerable part of character, formally considered, surely involves the

capacity to hold to one's principles even when this involves the pain of going against particular desires

and personal interest. The 'higher happiness' that accompanies a strong moral disposition, or integrity

of character, is, for Kant, the 'contentment' of acting as one's 'genuine self,' and, for Nietzsche, the 'joy

of the creator' (in contrast to the happiness of the creature).

Although we are now done with the main purpose of the thesis, I would like to give some

indication of how these three chapters give a helpful context in which to pursue central and contentious

topics in Nietzsche's philosophy. In particular, I want to address in a brief final chapter one question, or

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cluster of questions, that seems to present itself here. In the closing section of this chapter, we

considered the 'commanding thoughts' in the moral philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer from a

Nietzschean perspective, as expressions of will-to-power, that is, as each expressing a particular way of

organizing one's drives and desires through an act of will characterized by a unique pairing of feeling

and cognition. For Nietzsche, the commanding thought of a moral philosophy, in the sense of these two

examples, is the philosopher's great creative-legislative act, through which the philosopher articulates

the will's most commanding and powerful principle of organization, as she or he experiences it. Hence

the notion of every great philosophy as 'das Selbstbekenntnis ihres Urhebers und eine Art ungewollter

und unvermerkter mémoires.'176

However, if Nietzsche personalizes philosophy in this way, the question naturally arises as to

why we should prefer one great philosophy to another, even supposing we have some standard for

deciding what counts as a great philosophy. Is it just a matter of taste? Is Nietzsche not reduced to

relativism, or, less negatively put, to 'perspectivism'? No; as we saw in the case of Schopenhauer,

Nietzsche demands of a philosopher that she possess the historical sense with which to sift through

personal experiences in order to separate what is merely personal and idiosyncratic from what is more

generally representative. Nietzsche never wavers from the claim that philosophers must speak from

personal experience; indeed he thinks this is essentially a platitude and that every philosopher worthy

of the title inevitably does so, consciously or not. But philosophers must also develop a historical sense

in order properly 'das böse Gewissen ihrer Zeit zu sein.'177

In the next chapter, I'll draw on our discussion thus far to briefly indicate how Nietzsche avoids

the threats of relativism and 'thoroughgoing perspectivism' in his critique of morality, in spite of the

176JGB §6.177JGB §212. Nietzsche continues: 'Indem sie gerade den Tugenden der Zeit das Messer vivisektorisch auf die Brust

setzten, verriethen sie, was ihr eignes Geheimniss war: um eine neue Grösse des Menschen zu wissen, um einen neuen ungegangenen Weg zu seiner Vergrösserung. Jedes Mal deckten sie auf, wie viel Heuchelei, Bequemlichkeit, Sich-gehen-lassen und Sich-fallen lassen, wie viel Lüge unter dem bestgeehrten Typus ihrer zeitgenössischen Moralität versteckt [...]'

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confusion surrounding the matter in much of the literature.

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Chapter 4

Nietzsche on the Will to Truth

In chapter 3, we examined the respective accounts of motivation given by Kant and

Schopenhauer from a Nietzschean perspective, and, in particular, their accounts of the motivation

underlying morally good actions. An important feature of both the Kantian and Schopenhauerean

accounts is that motivation in morally good actions involves the pairing of a distinctive feeling with a

unique 'practical' or 'intuitive' cognition, inseparably linked as the expression of transcendental

freedom. As we saw, Nietzsche criticizes Kant and Schopenhauer for limiting this structural relation –

between the motivational force of a feeling and the content of an associated cognition (whereby, in

particular, the character of the feeling can only be understood in relation to the content of the cognition)

– to a single motivational feeling-cognition pairing. For Nietzsche, all motivation involves this

reciprocal relation between motive force, or feeling, and 'commanding thought.' The commanding

thought is, roughly speaking, the guiding purpose of the given act of will, or rather the interrelation of

purposes between the various drives and desires involved in the act of will. The commanding thought

need not be consciously thought by the agent. Nietzsche holds, however, that we cannot understand the

character of motive feelings without examining the particular commanding thought which is in any

given case drawing on them, organizing and subordinating them in relation to one another. Conversely,

we cannot properly understand the character of commanding thoughts – including moral principles –

until we examine the drives, instincts and desires which produce motive feelings and on which

commanding thoughts draw. The commanding thought itself expresses the interrelation and

organization of drives, instincts and desires in any given act of will. It's completely unilluminating,

then, to speak of pleasures and pains merely as such, as common motive forces in various acts of will.

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Kant and Schopenhauer ought not, according to Nietzsche, broadly accept such a conception of

pleasures and pains, excepting only a single, uniquely moral form of motivation.

Moreover, even as regards these uniquely moral forms of motivation, Nietzsche thinks that the

accompanying metaphysical interpretations given by Kant and Schopenhauer are fundamentally

mistaken. Both Kant and Schopenhauer locate the agent's 'higher self' in a transcendental aspect or

capacity rising above the agent's merely empirical nature. In Nietzsche's eyes, they hold here to a

typical philosopher's prejudice, according to which there can be no genuine moral transformation of

human beings' 'lower' nature through merely empirical or historical processes.1 The source of our

higher capacities, in particular of any genuine moral goodness, must then be sought in a transcendental

ground or origin.

While Nietzsche certainly rejects this form of 'transcendental interpretation,' he nonetheless

allows that the Kantian and Schopenhauerean motivational pairings – of respect with recognition of the

moral law, and of compassion with insight into the illusoriness of individuation – offer genuine

articulations of the moral worldviews contained in their respective philosophies. For Nietzsche,

however, these particular motivational pairings, as well as the associated moral worldviews themselves,

need to be evaluated in terms of the actual history of morals, notably, in regard to the history of the

distinctive human struggle with the competing demands of our naturally evolved animal nature and of

the processes of socialization. With an examination of these issues, chapter 3 completed our look at the

dynamic between Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in terms of their respective oppositions to

eudaemonism and utilitarianism. In this final chapter, I'd like to give a preliminary indication of how

the discussion thus far lays the groundwork for an understanding of the true 'commanding thought' of

Western morality, as revealed by Nietzsche's genealogy of morals.2 Not surprisingly, Nietzsche thinks

1 See, e.g., JGB §2.2 A closely related question would be that of the commanding thought of Nietzsche's philosophy. Nietzsche hits on various

formulations of his own commanding thought, most notably the thought of the eternal return and amor fati. A crucial aim of this commanding thought – recall that, as such, it is a principle for the organization and interrelation of drives, for

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that this commanding thought has, in the first instance, to be unearthed from the actual history of

morals, in particular, of Western Judeo-Christian morals (though this in turn requires, to some extent, a

grasp of the preceding 'morality of mores' and of our 'animal prehistory').

Nietzsche's methodological emphasis on history and genealogy is in fact closely linked with the

inseparability, in any act of will, of the motive feeling, or affect, from the commanding thought. Affect

and thought are linked by what we might call the naturalist strand of Nietzsche's philosophy, in

particular by his insistence that reason cannot of itself, i.e., in isolation from facts about human nature

and history, legitimately ground any moral theory or justify any moral truths in regard to human beings.

As Brian Leiter puts the point, Nietzsche 'is driven to construct a quasi-speculative theory of human

nature to explain certain belief systems (philosophical, common-sensical, evaluative) precisely because

he finds that these features do not admit of rational vindication. We must look beyond human reason –

to certain natural facts and dispositions about human beings – to explain why they hold these beliefs

nonetheless.'3

In the context of our current discussion, there are two important aspects to this point. First, there

is the methodological aspect, to the effect that we must begin with facts about human nature and history

if we are to have any hope of building an accurate picture of what morality is, and how it has come to

be what it is. This includes any account of moral justification, or vindication, of beliefs, views, theories,

etc.; any reasonable notion of moral justification must begin with certain facts about human nature –

which is not to say that such facts themselves determine what can be morally justified. The second

aspect of the above point is that moral reasons and justifications are always simultaneously expressions

establishing an 'order of rank' among the drives – is to appropriate and 'redeem,' to make healthy, the commanding thought at the heart of Western morality thus far. Understanding the genealogical project and what it uncovers as the 'kernel' of Judeo-Christian morality is therefore an essential precursor to making sense of the eternal return and amor fati – although in reality the latter already provide guidance to the genealogical analysis in GM. This chapter, however, focuses on Nietzsche's analysis of the history of morals and leaves Nietzsche's positive ideal mostly beyond my scope here.

3 Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality, Routledge, New York, 2002, p.10. In the following, citations to Leiter are given with page numbers from this publication, unless otherwise indicated.

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of affects and motive feelings. We saw in chapter 3 how, for Nietzsche, this point is not meant to

necessarily undermine moral reasons and justifications (though it will sometimes do so, and is often

useful in unmasking moral pretensions); it's an essential element of how values are created, and, more

generally, of how we commit to moral values and ideals, that various drives, affects and feelings are

brought under the control of certain commanding thoughts and principles.4 Since Nietzsche holds that

the moral significance and meaning of such principles cannot be understood apart from the interrelation

of the drives and affects that they command, we must unearth the relevant facts about such drives and

affects if we are to understand the commanding principles.

Here we should bear in mind how Kant and Schopenhauer also articulate the guiding principles

of their respective moral philosophies with the help of particular feelings uniquely tied to these guiding

principles. The feeling of respect plays a central role in Kant's explanation of how an agent can

determine her will directly through the moral law, i.e., can act in a morally justifiable way. The feeling

of compassion plays an even greater role in Schopenhauer's explanation of morally good action, as he

essentially identifies this feeling with moral insight into the illusoriness of individuation. However,

both Kant and Schopenhauer insist, as we've seen, on interpreting the nature and significance of these

feelings 'transcendentally,' i.e., in way that necessarily goes beyond empirical facts about human nature

and history. Nietzsche's view is that the moral nature and significance of such feelings is not in this way

transparent to human reason, and that empirical facts are therefore essential for a proper interpretation

of them.5

4 Note the concluding line of JGB §187: 'Abgesehn noch vom Werthe solcher Behauptungen wie "es giebt in uns einen kategorischen Imperativ", kann man immer noch fragen: was sagt eine solche Behauptung von dem sie Behauptenden aus? Es giebt Moralen, welche ihren Urheber vor Anderen rechtfertigen sollen; andre Moralen sollen ihn beruhigen und mit sich zufrieden stimmen; mit anderen will er sich selbst an's Kreuz schlagen und demüthigen; [...] kurz, die Moralen sind auch nur eine Zeichensprache der Affekte.'

5 Nietzsche makes a similar point about conscious intentions at JGB §32: 'sollten wir nicht an der Schwelle einer Periode stehen, welche, negativ, zunächst als die aussermoralische zu bezeichnen wäre: heute, wo wenigstens unter uns Immoralisten der Verdacht sich regt, dass gerade in dem, was nicht-absichtlich an einer Handlung ist, ihr entscheidender Werth belegen sei, und dass alle ihre Absichtlichkeit, Alles, was von ihr gesehn, gewusst, "bewusst" werden kann, noch zu ihrer Oberfläche und Haut gehöre, - welche, wie jede Haut, Etwas verräth, aber noch mehr verbirgt? Kurz, wir glauben, dass die Absicht nur ein Zeichen und Symptom ist, das erst der Auslegung bedarf, dazu ein Zeichen, das zu

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In GM it's the historical, or genealogical, facts of morality that come especially to the forefront

as material for interpretation. The dramatic conclusion of GM, drawn from such genealogical

interpretation, is that the will to truth is the kernel of the ascetic ideal, and thus of morality itself. The

will to truth is, in other words, the commanding thought of (Western, Judeo-Christian) morality as a

whole. Naturally, this isn't particularly illuminating until we have some sense of what Nietzsche means

by 'truth' and by the 'will' to it. The aim of this chapter is to clarify, in a preliminary way, the meaning

of these terms for Nietzsche, especially in response to, and in opposition to, interpretations of Nietzsche

as a 'thoroughgoing perspectivist.' (Of course, Nietzsche doesn't see the philosopher's task as merely

historical; he aims to bring about, or at least to indicate the possibilities of, transforming and

repurposing the will to truth. This is a task for the commanding thought of his philosophy, which he

characterizes most often as the eternal return or as amor fati; see note 2 above. There won't, however,

be much space to address this point here. I'll merely indicate, at the end of this chapter and in the

following concluding remarks, the relevance of the main results here for tackling this further task of

Nietzsche's philosophy.)

This chapter is divided into the following sections. In 4.1, I contrast two strands of thought

about truth in Nietzsche's philosophy, first a pragmatic or perspectivist strand, and second the

conception of truth essential to Nietzsche's claims that the will to truth is the 'kernel' of the ascetic

ideal. In 4.2, we see that it's the latter conception of truth that figures most prominently in Nietzsche's

critique of morality, both as a nihilistic threat, and also as that which Nietzsche's philosophy aims to

incorporate as 'that youngest of all virtues: honesty.' I note that it's on the basis primarily of the kinds of

affects Nietzsche locates behind the will to truth that Nietzsche diagnoses this will as nihilistic.

Nietzsche's suggestion that many of these affects are sick and life-denying should not be taken in any

Vielerlei und folglich für sich allein fast nichts bedeutet, - dass Moral, im bisherigen Sinne, also Absichten-Moral ein Vorurtheil gewesen ist, eine Voreiligkeit, eine Vorläufigkeit vielleicht, ein Ding etwa vom Range der Astrologie und Alchymie [...]'

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straightforward sense as an attack on the objectivity or epistemological status of truth. Moreover,

Nietzsche is far from any wholesale condemnation of the affects and modes of valuation that lie behind

the 'unconditional' will to truth. He also ties affects of discipline, self-control, self-command, 'hardness,'

etc., to this will to truth, and to the ascetic ideal in general, as a great creative force, which he wants to

harness for a critique of the will to truth itself. Finally, in 4.3, I respond to a few examples of

'perspectivist' interpretations of Nietzsche and note the main difficulties arising from them.

4.1 Will to truth: pragmatism and nihilism

Central to Nietzsche's genealogical project is the story of how the 'unconditional' will to truth,

the morally grounded will to truth 'at all costs,' grew out of a will to falsehood,6 or, less paradoxically,

out of an evolutionary need to perceive and order the world in particular ways. At one extreme of this

story, we find what we might call an evolutionary-pragmatic conception of truth, and, at the other, what

Nietzsche calls the 'kernel of the ascetic ideal,' a will to sacrifice everything else in the name of truth. In

order to make sense of Nietzsche's overall conception of truth, and of the role he gives it in his

philosophy, we need to have at least a broad view of the story as a whole and a grasp of the extremes.

This section retraces Nietzsche's account, and the next section will take an initial look at what

Nietzsche wants to make of it.

In line with his evolutionary understanding of our prehistory, Nietzsche argues that the earliest,

and therefore most basic, ways in which humans and our evolutionary ancestors organized the world

around them developed in accordance with the logic of natural selection. The ways in which we

perceive and organize experience are, that is, to a great extent the result of the pressures of natural

selection. In FW §111, Nietzsche explains the development of our basic logical categories from this

evolutionary perspective: 'Wer zum Beispiel das “Gleiche” nicht oft genug aufzufinden wusste, in

6 JGB §2.

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Betreff der Nahrung oder in Betreff der ihm feindlichen Tiere, wer also zu langsam subsumirte, zu

vorsichtig in der Subsumption war, hatte nur geringere Wahrscheinlichkeit des Fortlebens als Der,

welcher bei allem Ähnlichen sofort auf Gleichheit riet. Der überwiegende Hang aber, das Ähnliche als

gleich zu behandeln, ein unlogischer Hang – denn es gibt an sich nichts Gleiches –, hat erst alle

Grundlage der Logik geschaffen.'

Nietzsche ends FW §111 with the broad conclusion: 'Der Verlauf logischer Gedanken und

Schlüsse in unserem jetzigen Gehirne entspricht einem Prozesse und Kampfe von Trieben, die an sich

einzeln alle sehr unlogisch und ungerecht sind; wir erfahren gewöhnlich nur das Resutat des Kampfes:

so schnell und so versteckt spielt sich jetzt dieser uralte Mechanismus in uns ab.' But '[d]as Leben [ist]

kein Argument,' Nietzsche says, insisting 'unter den Bedingungen des Lebens könnte der Irrtum sein.'7

That a certain belief or way of thinking is useful for life, from the evolutionary point of view, doesn't

amount to evidence of truth, if truth is conceived as something independent from the perspective of the

living beings in question.8 To this extent, the evolutionary-pragmatic origins of truth in Nietzsche's

account might fairly be called 'perspectivist' (though I'll note below an important difference between

this rather mild notion of perspectivism and other forms that are sometimes attributed to Nietzsche).

Nietzsche likes to refer rhetorically to the beliefs and modes of thinking belonging to 'the

conditions of life' as the errors or 'necessary falsehoods'9 of the form of life in question. Nietzsche's

point is simply that these beliefs and modes of thinking eventually became 'selbst innerhalb der

Erkenntnis zu den Normen, nach denen man “wahr” und “unwahr” bemaß – bis hinein in die

entlegendsten Gegenden der reinen Logik.' Without wanting to push the comparison too far, we might

look at Nietzsche's point here as a very general, naturalized analogue of the Kantian: the basic logical

categories provide, for Nietzsche too, ways in which we necessarily organize experience in order to

7 FW §121.8 See also JGB §4, FW §§110, 354.9 JGB §4.

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cognize the world around us. Of course, the naturalized evolutionary account Nietzsche gives of their

development would seem to undermine the strict necessity and universality Kant is after, and to open

the door to revision of the categories in a way not possible on the Kantian account.

FW §110 provides an excellent summary of Nietzsche's overall 'story of truth,' with Nietzsche

first taking up again the evolutionary-pragmatic perspective, but subsequently moving on to a radically

new development of the will to truth. The section opens with the claim that 'for ages' whatever products

of the intellect survived did so because they proved useful and species-preserving. Nietzsche gives as

examples of those articles of faith, 'die immer weiter vererbt und endlich fast zum menschlichen Art-

und Grundbestand wurden,' the following: 'dass es gleiche Dinge gebe, dass es Dinge, Stoffe, Körper

gebe, dass ein Ding das sei, als was er erscheine, dass unser Wollen frei sei, dass was für mich gut ist,

auch an und für sich gut sei.' Only very late, Nietzsche claims, could deniers and doubters emerge in

regard to these articles of faith. Here Nietzsche associates truth – perhaps more easily understood as

truthfulness – with the capacity to doubt and question well-entrenched norms, remarking that only 'sehr

spät trat die Wahrheit auf, als die unkräftigste Form der Erkenntnis.' For 'die Kraft der Erkenntnisse

liegt nicht in ihrem Grade von Wahrheit, sondern in ihrem Alter, ihrer Einverleibtheit, ihrem Charakter

als Lebensbedingung. Wo Leben und Erkennen in Widerspruch zu kommen schienen, ist nie ernstlich

gekämpft worden; da galt Leugnung und Zweifel als Tollheit.'

When Nietzsche focuses on truth from the evolutionary-pragmatic perspective, he naturally

emphasizes the nature of the human being as an organism, asking what function knowledge could have

played for the human organism. From the evolutionary perspective, he argues, it seems as though we

could not live with truth: 'unser Organismus war auf ihren Gegensatz eingerichtet; alle seine höheren

Funktionen, die Wahrnehmungen der Sinne und jede Art von Empfindung überhaupt, arbeiteten mit

jenen uralt einverleibten Grundirrtümern.'10 Similarly, in FW §354, after wondering why consciousness

10 FW §110.

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should have developed at all when it seems all our thinking, feeling, willing could just as well take

place without any 'mirroring' in consciousness (and for the most part, Nietzsche holds, does take place

without such mirroring), Nietzsche answers that it was only under the pressure and need for

communication between humans that consciousness developed, 'dass Bewusstsein überhaupt sich nur

unter dem Druck des Mitteilungs-Bedürfnisses entwickelt hat.' It was not, in other words, for the sake

of knowledge that consciousness developed, not for mirroring the world in consciously apprehended

truths – except, perhaps, if we define truth pragmatically in terms of what is 'nötig' and 'nützlich.' As

Nietzsche puts it, again focusing on the human being as organism, '[w]ir haben eben gar kein Organ für

das Erkennen, für die “Wahrheit”: wir “wissen” (oder glauben oder bilden uns ein) gerade so viel als es

im Interesse der Menschen-Herde, der Gattung, nützlich sein mag: und selbst, was hier “Nützlichkeit”

genannt wird, ist zuletzt nur ein Glaube, eine Einbildung und vielleicht gerade jene verhängnisvollste

Dummheit, an der wir einst zugrunde gehen.'11

The last suggestion is of particular interest for our discussion; by scare-quoting and qualifying

'usefulness' ('Nützlichkeit'), Nietzsche highlights the fact that the natural selection of drives is

essentially a blind process. That is, evolution does not follow any cosmic principle, as Spencer

believed, nor any fundamental law in accordance with which we inevitably progress according to fixed

criteria (as, e.g., adaptability for survival and reproduction). In particular, it's perfectly conceivable that

certain drives and instincts naturally selected, i.e., having proved beneficial for survival and

reproduction in given circumstances, should themselves, together with new circumstances, so alter

living conditions that the very logic of selection, of what is 'useful,' is fundamentally changed. Indeed,

in chapter 3, we saw that this is precisely what happened, according to Nietzsche, when still 'semi-

animal' humans turned certain drives to dominate and conquer towards founding states. The subsequent

tyranny, repression and 'internalization' of drives and instincts under processes of socialization

11 FW §354.

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introduced a radically different logic of behavioural selection into human history. Nietzsche, of course,

doesn't claim that the logic of natural selection ceased to operate, but simply that the sudden (in

evolutionary terms) changes in living conditions layered a very different logic of behavioural selection

over that of natural selection. The result is that behaviour is modified and selected in ways that are not

explicable merely as the products of natural selection, if the latter are taken as synonymous with what

is 'useful for reproduction and survival.'

I will return to this possibility of a non-evolutionary-pragmatic will to truth in a minute. First,

it's worth briefly noting that FW §354 is also, so far as I know, the only place where Nietzsche uses the

term 'Perpektivismus' itself. He gives the following meaning: 'Dies ist der eigentliche

Phänomenalismus und Perpektivismus, wie ich ihn verstehe: die Natur des tierischen Bewusstseins

bringt es mit sich, dass die Welt, deren wir bewusst werden können, nur eine Oberflächen- und

Zeichenwelt ist, eine verallgemeinerte, eine vergemeinerte, – dass Alles, was bewusst wird, ebendamit

flach, dünn, relativ-dumm, generell, Zeichen, Herden-Merkzeichen wird, dass mit allem

Bewusstwerden eine große gründliche Verderbnis, Fälschung, Veroberflächlichung und Generalisation

verbunden ist.'

As already noted, FW §354 as a whole speaks from an evolutionary perspective, since it's an

attempt to answer the question why consciousness became necessary and useful for the human

organism. In the passage just quoted, Nietzsche explicitly ties perspectivism to the nature of animal

consciousness. The conclusion that we have 'eben gar kein Organ für das Erkennen, für die “Wahrheit”'

follows directly from the logic of natural selection: knowledge and truth cannot be ends in themselves

within this logic, but must rather serve more fundamental aims, such as survival and reproduction.

From the evolutionary perspective, there can be no question of a genuine battle between a will to

knowledge, or truth, for its own sake, on the one hand, and the goals of reproduction and survival, on

the other. The question is simply how consciousness has developed in service of these fundamental

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evolutionary goals. (Of course, since evolution is a blind process, these aren't goals or aims of the

process itself, strictly speaking. The point is simply that drives, instincts, dispositions, etc., that have

proved useful for survival and reproduction are, for that reason, more likely to be passed on; it cannot,

by contrast, be said that drives, instincts, dispositions, etc., that have proved useful for acquiring

knowledge and truth are, directly for that reason, more likely to be passed on.) In FW §354, Nietzsche

develops his answer to this question, stressing, as we saw above, the need for communication as the

evolutionary pressure most directly pushing the development of consciousness.

FW §110, as a condensed version of Nietzsche's genealogy of truth, goes on, however, to

present an entirely new development in the character of will to knowledge. I will quote the passage in

some length, as it gives an excellent presentation of the conflict central to our final chapter here.

Nietzsche argues that eventually living conditions became such as to leave room for a certain

'intellectual play' with respect to opposing statements, or points of view, that were equally useful, or at

least in no obvious way harmful, 'for life.' Thus a more refined honesty and scepticism could emerge

dort, wo neue Sätze dem Leben zwar nicht nützlich, aber wenigstens auch nicht schädlich zeigten, als Äußerungen eines intellektuellen Spieltriebes, und unschuldig und glücklich gleich allem Spiele. Allmählich fühlte sich das menschliche Gehirn mit solchen Urteilen und Überzeugungen, so entsand in diesem Knäuel, Gährung, Kampf und Machtgelüst. Nützlichkeit und Lust nicht nur, sondern jede Art von Trieben nahm Partei in dem Kampfe um die 'Wahrheiten'; der intellektuelle Kampf wurde Beschäftigung, Reiz, Beruf, Pflicht, Würde –: das Erkennen und das Streben nach dem Wahren ordnete sich endlich als Bedürfnis in die anderen Bedürfnisse ein. Von da an war nicht nur der Glaube und die Überzeugung, sondern auch die Prüfung, die Leugnung, das Misstrauen, der Widerspruch eine Macht, alle 'bösen' Instinkte waren der Erkenntnis untergeordnet und in ihren Dienst gestellt und bekamen den Glanz des Erlaubten, Geehrten, Nützlichen und zuletzt das Auge und die Unschuld des Guten. Die Erkenntnis wurde also zu einem Stück Leben selber und als Leben zu einer immerfort wachsenden Macht: bis endlich die Erkenntnisse und jene uralten Grundirrtümer auf einander stießen, beide als Leben, beide als Macht, beide in dem selben Menschen. Der Denker: das ist jetzt das Wesen, in dem der Trieb zur Wahrheit und jene lebenerhaltenden Irrtümer ihren ersten Kampf kämpfen, nachdem auch der Trieb zur Wahrheit sich als eine lebenerhaltende Macht bewiesen hat. Im Verhältnis zu der Wichtigkeit dieses Kampfes ist alles Andere gleichgültig: die letzte Frage um die Bedingung des Lebens ist hier gestellt, und der erste Versuch wird hier gemacht, mit dem Experiment auf diese Frage zu antworten. Inwieweit verträgt die Wahrheit

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die Einverleibung? – das ist die Frage, das ist das Experiment.

First, let's note that this subordination of all manner of drives and instincts under the banner of a

new dominant drive, here the drive to truth, is what we characterized in chapter 3 as the expression of

will to power. Moreover, Nietzsche describes such subordination here as transforming all 'evil' instincts

by pressing them into service of this new drive and bringing to them finally the eye of innocence and of

the good. This is a prime example of will to power in two crucial respects. First, it's a central theme of

Nietzsche's moral philosophy that 'evil' instincts ought not to be subjected to shame and repression, but

transformed into, or subordinated to, good, healthy drives and instincts. Indeed, Nietzsche points, as we

saw in chapter 3, to the story of Vishvamitra12 as 'das unheimliche Symbol der ältesten und jüngsten

Philosophen-Geschichte auf Erden – jeder, der irgendwann einmal einen “neuen Himmel” gebaut hat,

fand die Macht dazu erst in der eignen Hölle.'13 Second, it's an important claim of Nietzsche's

genealogy of morals that, in particular, the drive to knowledge, the will to truth, coordinates and draws

on a number of drives that were for most of human history considered evil, or at best suspect.14

A second point to note, in respect to the extended passage just quoted, is the character of the

drive to truth that emerges. That this drive to truth, as an ever more refined honesty and scepticism, can

run up against and do battle with the ancient life-preserving errors shows that this drive has to some

extent freed itself from the logic of an evolutionary-pragmatic notion of truth, i.e., of truth in the sense

of those 'life-preserving errors.' It might be objected that Nietzsche here concludes that this hardened

drive to truth has also proven itself as a 'life-preserving power.' But this only shows that the form of life

in question is no longer a product merely of selection for reproduction and survival. This point comes

out even more clearly in a section from FW Book 5 running parallel, in many ways, to §110 from Book

3. The section, FW §346, is titled 'Unser Fragezeichen' and offers a slightly different formulation of the

12 A legendary Hindu ascetic who, through thousands of years of self-mortification, achieves the divine insight that transforms him into a Brahmarishi, the highest class of Hindu sage.

13 GM III:10.14 A point emphasized in both FW §110 and GM III:24, for instance.

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fundamental question, 'the experiment,' of Nietzsche's philosophy. In relevant part, FW §346 parallels

§110 as follows:

wir wissen es, die Welt, in der wir leben, ist ungöttlich, unmoralisch, 'unmenschlich,' – wir haben sie uns allzulange falsch und lügnerisch, aber nach Wunsch und Willen unsrer Verehrung, das heißt nach einem Bedürfnisse ausgelegt. Denn der Mensch ist ein verehrendes Tier! Aber er ist auch ein misstrauisches: und dass die Welt nicht das wert ist, was wir geglaubt haben, das ist ungefähr das Sicherste, dessen unser Misstrauen endlich habhaft geworden ist. So viel Misstrauen, so viel Philosophie. Wir hüten uns wohl zu sagen, dass sie weniger wert ist: es erscheint uns heute selbst zum Lachen, wenn der Mensch in Anspruch nehmen wollte, Werte zu erfinden, welchen den Wert der wirklichen Welt überragen sollten, – gerade davon sind wir zurückgekommen als von einer ausschweifenden Verirrung der menschlichen Eitelkeit und Unvernunft, die lange als solche nicht erkannt worden ist. [...] Die ganze Attitüde 'Mensch gegen Welt,' der Mensch als 'Welt-verneinendes' Prinzip, der Mensch als Wertmaß der Dinge, als Welten-Richter, der zuletzt das Dasein selbst auf seine Wagschalen legt und zu leicht befindet – die ungeheurliche Abgeschmacktheit dieser Attitüde ist uns als solche zum Bewusstsein gekommen und verleidet, – wir lachen schon, wenn wir 'Mensch und Welt' nebeneinander gestellt finden, getrennt durch die sublime Anmaßung des Wörtchens 'und'! Wie aber? Haben wir nicht eben damit, als Lachende, nur ein Schritt in der Verachtung des Menschen gemacht? Und also auch im Pessimismus, in der Verachtung des uns erkennbaren Daseins? Sind wir nicht eben damit dem Argwohn eines Gegensatzes verfallen, eines Gegensatzes der Welt, in der wir bisher mit unsren Verehrung zu Hause waren – um deren willen wir vielleicht zu leben aushielten –, und einer andren Welt, die wir selber sind: einem unerbittlichen, gründlichen, untersten Argwohn über uns selbst, der uns Europäer immer mehr, immer schlimmer in Gewalt bekommt und leicht die kommenden Geschlechter vor das furchtbare Entweder-Oder stellen könnte: 'entweder schafft eure Verehrungen ab oder – euch selbst!' Das Letztere wäre der Nihilismus; aber wäre nicht auch das Erstere – der Nihilismus? – dies ist unser Fragezeichen.

Here, again, the dramatic concluding question is of the extent to which we can live with truth,

can incorporate truth, given that the drive to truth has grown into a fundamental commitment, to negate

which would be to negate ourselves. The dynamic here is, however, somewhat different from that in

FW §110, in that the drive to truth is here confronting life-preserving beliefs and errors that are tied, not

so closely to our naturally selected animal natures, as to religious and moral faith that arises, according

to the account given in chapter 3, at least in part out of the state of tension between our animal natures

and the process of socialization.

This is in line, however, with Nietzsche's account of a progressively strengthening will to truth.

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For the longest period of human history, Nietzsche argues, the realm for free intellectual play of

scepticism remained more or less constrained by religious or moral limits, if it was not in fact meant

simply to serve religion and morality.15 Indeed, Nietzsche likes to claim that he is the first philosopher

to question the value of morality itself, rather than find there a 'resting-place' as did all previous

thinkers.16 In GM, he presents the will to truth as the 'kernel of the ascetic ideal' and of Western religion

and morality, as progressively breaking off and rejecting the dogma that had previously supported it,

but which are no longer necessary as it gains in strength.17 Nietzsche's conception of the will to truth

thus spans a long development, from an entirely evolutionary-pragmatic conception, according to

which truth – or 'indispensable error' – amounts to those beliefs and modes of thinking that are useful

for survival and reproduction, to a will to truth that consciously longs to free itself from all

subservience to any other drives and ideals, that longs for truth 'at any price.'

In FW §346, Nietzsche insists that, for the individual in whom these extremes collide, retreating

from scepticism and the hardened will to truth would be nihilism, given the extent to which the latter

have themselves been incorporated as a basic drive, as an overarching principle in the order of rank

among values. Walter Kaufmann, in his translation of FW, dismisses, as a second form of nihilism

rejected by Nietzsche, the alternative presented in §346, namely, the destruction of those reverences

with which we were up to now able to live.18 But it's hard to see the justification for this dismissal in

either FW §346 or the broader context of the passage and of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole.

Nietzsche is advancing a genuine question mark here: to what extent can we live with the will to truth,

in the hardened sense of the kernel of the ascetic ideal, as one of our most powerful drives and sources

of value?

It might be objected here that Nietzsche's account of the development of the will to truth at any

15 See, e.g., FW §123.16 Preface to Morgenröte, §3.17 GM III:27.18 Gay Science, Walter Kaufmann tr., Random House of Canada, 1974, p.287.

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price out of earlier, less radical, drives to truth and, ultimately, out of the evolutionary-pragmatic

function of 'truth,' is intended precisely to emphasize and restore the true perspectival character of truth,

to point out that there is no such thing as truth or science 'without presuppositions.' This objection is

valid up to a point. Nietzsche is not, however, arguing for any return to a merely evolutionary-

pragmatic conception of truth; he is, rather, looking at how the apparent nihilism of the 'unconditional'

will to truth might be directed to more life-affirming purposes. The next section takes a look at

Nietzsche's characterization of this goal, the attempt to overcome the nihilistic tendency of the will to

truth without sacrificing the strength of its 'hardened' anti-pragmatic character.

Before moving on to Nietzsche's valuation of the will to truth, I'd like clarify a few points about

my terminology and the nature of truth in Nietzsche. First, I choose the term 'anti-pragmatic' in

opposition to 'evolutionary-pragmatic.' This could lead to some confusion. I want to stress that by 'anti-

pragmatic' I don't mean 'independent of our cognitive interests,' nor any representational as opposed to

functional (i.e., 'pragmatic' as it is often used) conception of truth. I mean rather a will to truth that is no

longer evolutionary-pragmatic. In other words, what is important in the Nietzschean developmental

account of the will to truth is that the drives and interests that made use of the will to truth changed

radically over time. In our animal prehistory, the will to truth was subservient, broadly speaking, to

survival and reproductive interests. When ascetic hatred of human nature (as expressed for instance by

Pope Innocent the Third, quoted in chapter 3, section 3.3) gains the psychological upper hand, the will

to truth may seek out everything base and contemptible in human nature, developing a sharp eye for all

that is denigrating, lowly, unpleasant and petty in even the best conditions of existence. Where a

Schopenhauerean pessimism rules, the will to truth may seek out the varieties of suffering and

disappointment that run through human life. Where the intellectual conscience, in Nietzsche's sense,

reigns, the will to truth may deliberately seek to counter familiar instincts of self-deception and 'herd'

valuation.

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The point is obviously not that the truths uncovered in such 'anti-pragmatic' examples of will to

truth are 'disinterested' in the sense of being unrelated to our cognitive interests. What is striking,

however, is that there should be a will to such truths if, as Nietzsche argues, the will to truth first

developed in the evolutionary-pragmatic service of survival and reproduction, and attendant secondary

goals. The point is also clearly not that the truths uncovered in either case – whether in the service of

evolutionary-pragmatic interests, or of more 'independent' or 'anti-natural' drives – cannot really be

truths, or that their truth is necessarily undermined by their relation to drives and other interests. Recall

that Nietzsche praises the courage of English moral psychologists at the beginning of GM I for

uncovering ugly truths – 'for there are such truths.' In this respect, I agree with the kinds of

interpretation of perspectivism and truth in Nietzsche advanced by Maudemarie Clark and Julian

Young, for instance. As Clark argues, the fact that truth is relative to our cognitive interests – that we

cannot conceive of what truth independent of our cognitive interests would be – obviously means that

what truths we discover will depend on the particular cognitive interests we have, but not that such

truths are merely an expression of our interests, of our 'perspectives.'19

Young illustrates the point with an example taken from Schopenhauer.20 When a general asks for

a map of the battlefield, he is asking for a map with specific kinds of information – and not others. Any

map is of course a simplification in the sense that it must exclude many features of the area it describes,

and the decisions as to what is included and what excluded depend on the particular interests behind the

creation of the map. But a decent map will accurately capture many features of the area it describes,

i.e., such features are true of the area described, and not merely the expression of interests that made

them relevant and worth including in the map in the first place. Now, a geologist will clearly be

interested in a map with somewhat different features from that desired by the general, as from that

19 See esp. pp.127-158 in Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, op cit. Citations to Clark in the following will be given with page numbers from this publication, unless otherwise specified.

20 See pp.474-476 in Young's Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010.

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desired by a builder or prospector. The various kinds and degrees of interest one could take in an area

of land are limitless, as are therefore the perspectives on it, and also the truths one could conceivably

discover about it. None of this means, however, that there are not actual truths and falsehoods about the

area itself. The general does not want a map simply to give him certain kinds of information – he also

wants the information to be accurate, i.e., to be a true description of the area in question. Young calls

the view he here attributes to Nietzsche 'plural realism.'

There are advantages, however, to focusing, as I do here, on Nietzsche's conception of truth as

encompassing a long development, from the evolutionary-pragmatic will to truth to the anti-pragmatic

will to truth 'at all costs.' I will simply illustrate the point with one example of exegetical difference

between Clark's position and my own, since my primary aim in this chapter is to address Nietzsche's

valuation of the will to truth, the theme I take up again at the beginning of the next section. Clark notes

that in his early and middle works, Nietzsche often 'denies truth' insofar as he refers to our basic truths

as necessary falsehoods or errors – as we saw above. After JGB, however, Nietzsche generally avoids

such language, and Clark argues that this confirms Nietzsche's move away from the denial of truth, and

that once he had rejected the notion of a true metaphysical world, there was no longer any sense to

speak about truths of 'this world' as errors or falsehoods. Clark acknowledges that Nietzsche had in fact

already rejected the notion of a true 'metaphysical' world by the time of FW and JGB, but contends that

a representational conception of truth lingered unconsciously in these works, in spite of the fact that

this conception rested on the now-abandoned notion of a metaphysical world of truths independent of

our cognitive interests.21

This account runs into some difficulty in FW §354, since the fifth book of FW (including §354)

was actually published after JGB, yet Clark holds that it nonetheless expresses the stubbornly lingering

representational conception of truth. When Nietzsche says 'dass mit allem Bewusst-werden eine große

21 Clark, pp.103-117.

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gründliche Verderbniß, Fälschung, Veroberflächlichung und Generalisation verbunden ist,' Clark takes

the claim of 'falsification' to show that Nietzsche here still holds to the denial of truth that rests on a

representational conception of truth. In particular, she suggests that here Nietzsche remains beholden to

the idea that sense data constitute ground-level reality, and that consciousness falsifies this reality

through its representations.22

Without entirely ruling out the possibility that there is an element of truth to Clark's

interpretation, I think it runs against the primary thrust of FW §354. Nietzsche, as we saw above,

frames §354 with the question as to how consciousness developed in the first place. The reason this is a

difficult and intriguing question, he tells us, is that, 'so beleidigend dies einem älteren Philosophen

klingen mag,' the great bulk of 'unsres dekenden, fühlenden, wollenden Lebens' really does take place

without conscious reflection: 'Das ganze Leben wäre möglich, ohne dass es sich gleichsam im Spiegel

sähe.' The picture Nietzsche paints here is not one of sense data lying beyond the reach of

consciousness (i.e., beyond all possible representation) with consciousness reflecting this sense-data

reality in a world of thinking, feeling and willing. Rather, Nietzsche is speaking of a world that already

includes thinking, feeling, willing, with only a portion of this world crossing the threshold of

consciousness.

I noted already that Nietzsche clearly asks the framing question of §354 from the evolutionary-

pragmatic perspective: the question is why we should have evolved a level of consciousness - and self-

consciousness – so striking in comparison to other animals. Nietzsche's answer turns on the pressing

social need for communication. The need to fix in signs and quickly communicate danger, cooperation,

hostility, status, etc., is at the root of the evolution of consciousness. For this reason, Nietzsche argues

that consciousness tends, by its very design, to exclude what is individual, 'dass das Bewusstsein nicht

eigentlich zur Individual-Existenz des Menschen gehört, vielmehr zu dem, was an ihm Gemeinschafts-

22 Clark, p.120.

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und Heerden-Natur ist; dass es, wie daraus folgt, auch nur in Bezug auf Gemeinschafts- und Heerden-

Nützlichkeit fein entwickelt ist [...]' Similarly in the one spot in §354 where Nietzsche does speak of

sense impressions, the context makes it clear that he doesn't mean a ground-level reality outside of

thought and thus in principle beyond the reach of consciousness, but rather a level of detail and

individual impression that tends, given the common (or 'communal') nature of consciousness, to be

excluded from communication and therefore from consciousness:

Man nehme hinzu, dass nicht nur die Sprache zur Brücke zwischen Mensch und Mensch dient, sondern auch der Blick, der Druck, die Gebärde; das Bewusst-werden unsrer Sinneseindrücke bei uns selbst, die Kraft, sie fixiren zu können und gleichsam außer uns zu stellen, hat in dem Maaße zugenommen, als die Nöthigung wuchs, sie Andern durch Zeichen zu übermitteln.

I think, therefore, that we should read Nietzsche's claim – that a great corruption, falsification,

simplification and generalization is tied to 'becoming-conscious' – not as resting on the idea that sense

data constitute a ground-level reality subsequently falsified in conscious representation, but that

consciousness, by its evolutionary-pragmatic design, makes it a great struggle for the individual to free

herself from the common, the 'herd,' way of thinking, even about herself. Consciousness is not an organ

for 'knowledge,' as Nietzsche puts it, because it didn't evolve for the purpose of securing knowledge,

but for the purposes of communication, which required a great deal of uniformity in the thinking,

feeling and willing that were to be communicated. Once we recognize that Nietzsche's own account of

the will to truth posits a long process of transformation, we can let §354 stand on its own terms, while

also recognizing that it's not the final word on knowledge and truth, for Nietzsche. Even though

consciousness did not evolve 'for truth' or for securing knowledge, later developments led to the anti-

pragmatic will to truth, as we saw above. And Nietzsche clearly thinks that the philosopher must indeed

develop an 'intellectual conscience' that deliberately cuts against the tendency of consciousness to

retain a 'herd-mentality.'

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Thus, contrary to Clark, I would argue that §354 is consistent with Nietzsche's account of the

development of the will to truth, rather than holding that we must see it as a stage in Nietzsche's

thinking about truth that was later abandoned. In the next section, I turn to Nietzsche's valuation of the

will to truth, in light of its development retraced above. I will return to the nature of truth and

perspectivism within Nietzsche's philosophy in section 4.3 when I address interpretations of Nietzsche

as a 'thoroughgoing perspectivist' that I find much less plausible than the 'plural realist' interpretation

that Young, Clark and I adopt.

4.2 'How much truth can a spirit endure?'

Nietzsche ultimately gives pride of place in his philosophy to a conception of truth lying at, or

at least towards, the anti-pragmatic extreme of the account considered in the previous section. In FW

§110 and §346, he suggests that the great experiment of his philosophy consists in the attempt to

'incorporate' the refined honesty and scepticism of this anti-pragmatic will to truth. In the Foreword to

Anti-Christ, Nietzsche puts the point more dramatically: 'Die Bedingungen, unter denen man mich

versteht und dann mit Nothwendigkeit versteht, ich kenne sie nur zu genau. [...] Man muss gleichgültig

geworden sein, man muss nie fragen, ob die Wahrheit nützt, ob sie Einen Verhängniss wird ...' Or again

in Ecce Homo, where Nietzsche once more praises the capacity for 'hard' truth and the readiness to

sacrifice, or 'to squander' oneself, for truth:

Wieviel Wahrheit erträgt, wieviel Wahrheit wagt ein Geist? das wurde für mich immer mehr der eigentliche Werthmesser. Irrthum (- der Glaube an's Ideal -) ist nicht Blindheit, Irrthum ist Feigheit ... Jede Errungenschaft, jeder Schritt vorwärts in der Erkenntniss folgt aus dem Muth, aus der Härte gegen sich, aus der Sauberkeit gegen sich... Ich widerlege die Ideale nicht, ich ziehe bloss Handschuhe vor ihnen an... Nitimur in vetitum: in diesem Zeichen siegt einmal meine Philosophie, denn man verbot bisher grundsätzlich immer nur die Wahrheit.23

The Preface to Morgenröte makes a similar point, with Nietzsche claiming that, faced with

23 Foreword, §3.

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morality, the will to truth and the sceptical impulse have always become paralyzed. It is therefore out of

an ever more encompassing will to truth, and thus, ultimately, 'out of morality' itself, that Nietzsche

claims to withdraw, and to question, faith in morality. Finally, FW §344 explicitly draws the distinction

between a pragmatic conception of truth and the unconditional will to truth that posits truth as an

absolute value, independently of any 'usefulness.' Nietzsche asks there: 'Dieser unbedingte Wille zur

Wahrheit: was ist er? Ist es der Wille, sich nicht täuschen zu lassen? Ist es der Wille, nicht zu täuschen?'

The former would perhaps be grounded in the pragmatic calculation 'dass es schädlich, gefährlich,

verhängnisvoll ist, getäuscht zu werden.' But Nietzsche insists that both truth and falsehood are an

essential and useful part of life and therefore 'kann der Glaube an der Wissenschaft, der nur einmal

unbestreitbar da ist, nicht aus einem solchen Nützlichkeits-Kalkül seinen Ursprung genommen haben,

sondern vielmehr trotzdem, dass ihm die Unnützlichkeit und Gefährlichkeit des “Willens zur

Wahrheit,” der “Wahrheit um jeden Preis” fortwährend bewiesen wird. “Um jeden Preis”: oh wir

verstehen das gut genug, wenn wir erst einen Glauben nach dem andern auf diesem Altare dargebracht

und abgeschlachtet haben!'24

Therefore, Nietzsche concludes, the will to truth does not mean the will not to let myself be

deceived, but rather '– es bleibt keine Wahl – “ich will nicht täuschen, auch mich selbst nicht”: – und

hiermit sind wir auf dem Boden der Moral.' The question 'why have science, why have the will to truth'

here leads back to the 'moral problem': 'wozu überhaupt Moral, wenn Leben, Natur, Geschichte

“unmoralisch” sind? Es ist kein Zweifel, der Wahrhaftige, in jenem verwegenen und letzten Sinne, wie

ihn der Glaube an die Wissenschaft voraussetzt, bejaht damit eine andre Welt als die des Lebens, der

Natur und der Geschichte; und insofern er diese 'andre Welt' bejaht, wie? muss er nicht eben damit ihr

Gegenstück, diese Welt, unsre Welt – verneinen?'25 This brings us again to the central question as to

how one can endure to live with this will to truth, on the 'altar' of which faith after faith has been

24 FW §344.25 FW §344.

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sacrificed, once this will to truth learns to see itself as a problem, once it has become strong enough to

question the moral ground on which it rests, on, namely, a realm of truth in-itself whose value is

affirmed as absolute.

Nietzsche's approach here draws crucially on his reading of 'die Moralen' as 'eine

Zeichensprache der Affekte,'26 on, that is, what we characterized in chapter 3 as the inseparability of

motive feelings, or affects, from commanding thoughts. An important part of his aim here is to

distinguish the life-affirming, value-creating drives and affects, or configurations thereof, that have

been subordinated to and in part constitute the hardened will to truth, from the nihilistic, or weary and

resentful, drives and affects behind this same will. Here I can only give a brief sketch of Nietzsche's

approach. First, note that for Nietzsche, 'Jede Moral ist, im Gegensatz zum laisser aller, ein Stück

Tyrannei gegen die “Natur”, auch gegen die “Vernunft” [...] Das Wesentliche und Unschätzbare an

jeder Moral ist, dass sie ein langer Zwang ist.'27 According to Nietzsche, an essential function of

religion and morality is, as we saw in chapter 3, to provide interpretations and justifications for the

human malaise and suffering (in particular, suffering from the apparent meaninglessness of suffering)

that follow, in large part, from the internalization of drives and instincts that, in turn, results from the

clash between the logic of natural selection and that of the processes of socialization. The self-tyranny

and self-laceration involved in this internalization thus find meaningful expression and justification in

morality; morality, in this way, draws essentially on the ascetic ideal.

When Nietzsche claims that the will to truth is the 'kernel' of the ascetic ideal, he is therefore

emphasizing the tyrannical and domineering instinct he sees behind it, i.e., its demand that truth be

recognized as of ultimate and unconditional value. There is a nihilistic tendency here, insofar as life

essentially involves error, illusion, simulation, exaggeration, etc., all of which Nietzsche aligns with art,

26 JGB §187.27 JGB §188.

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in at least partial opposition to the will to truth.28 At its extreme, the ascetic ideal longs for control over

not just this or that condition of life, but over life itself;29 the impossibility of gaining such

independence from the affects, from the body, from the very matter and materiality of life, can easily

lead the ascetic ideal to what Nietzsche diagnoses as the Christian ressentiment towards life itself.

However, as the passages quoted at the beginning of this section indicate, Nietzsche at times

emphasizes another aspect of the domineering drives and affects he sees behind the will to truth:

strength, courage, intellectual cleanliness, respect for oneself, control over one's virtues, even over

'one's For and Against.'30 As we saw in section 3.3 of chapter 3, the 'highest form' of conscience,

envisioned by Nietzsche as a redemption of the long history of social and moral tyranny, can itself only

grow out of this control and self-mastery of affects. In trying to make sense of Nietzsche's questioning

of the will to truth, it's important to understand this emphasis on examining the drives and affects, and

their interrelation, which Nietzsche sees as constituting the will to truth, and, in particular, the moral

significance and values expressed by the will to truth. This approach is justified if we accept

Nietzsche's characterization of 'die Moralen' as 'eine Zeichensprache der Affekte,' the meaning of which

we examined in sections 3.3 and 3.4 of the previous chapter, in terms of the inseparability of motive

feelings and affects from their commanding thoughts, or principles.

Further pursuing this approach, and examining Nietzsche's use of it in his critique of the

unconditional will to truth, is beyond the scope of this thesis. I want, however, to address an important

strand of Nietzsche interpretation, according to which epistemological issues are central to his critique

of the will to truth. According to this strand of interpretation, an epistemological doctrine about the

28 GM III:25.29 GM III:28.30 See, e.g., JGB §284: 'Seine Affekte, sein Für und Wider willkürlich haben und nicht haben, sich auf sie herablassen, für

Stunden; sich auf sie setzen, wie auf Pferde, oft wie auf Esel: - man muss nämlich ihre Dummheit so gut wie ihr Feuer zu nützen wissen.' Similarly, GM III:12 insists that we should not be ungrateful for the ascetic anti-nature needed for philosophy, for, that is, 'das Vermögen, sein Für und Wider in der Gewalt zu haben und aus- und einzuhängen: so dass man sich gerade die Verschiedenheit der Perspektiven und der Affekt-Interpretationen für die Erkenntnis nutzbar zu machen weiss.'

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relative or perspectival nature of truth underlies Nietzsche's critique of the will to truth, if not his

philosophical project as a whole. I think this is a mistake. Nietzsche's concerns are much more squarely

aimed at the will to truth, that is, on the faith in the value of truth, and on the drives and affects

expressing themselves as such faith and will. It's important to see, in particular, that when Nietzsche

questions the 'unconditional will to truth,' he is not questioning the objectivity of such things as the

facts of history, whose importance and character as facts we saw him affirm as essential to the

genealogical project, but rather the moral ideal that underlies the will to truth 'at any price.'

As Leiter says, in commenting on GM III, Nietzsche 'nowhere attacks the existence or

objectivity of truth in the Third Essay, only the excessive valuation of truth characteristic of the

scientific outlook. The asceticism of science and its “will to truth” are his targets. There is no

scepticism levelled here against the epistemic standing of scientific truths [...]'31 It's perfectly consistent

of Nietzsche to accept, free of epistemological concerns, the truth of historical facts drawn from 'das

Graue, will sagen, das Urkundliche, das Wirklich-Feststellbare, das Wirklich-Dagewesene [...] der

menschlichen Moral-Vergangenheit,'32 while nonetheless questioning whether we ought to place

unconditional or ultimate value on truth, such that we are prepared to subordinate or sacrifice all other

values to it.

For instance, Nietzsche, in GM I, directs the reader to historical facts that can be established

philologically, e.g., as to the etymology and transformations in the meanings of the terms 'good and

bad,' 'good and evil' in German, Latin and Greek.33 In GM II, Nietzsche catalogues forms of torture

given in ancient and medieval legal codes, noting how the right to torture and inflict pain were often

used as forms of compensation for a creditor whose debtors failed to meet their commitments, and how

executions were often incorporated into festivals and celebrations.34 As we saw in chapter 3, these kinds

31 Leiter, p.265. See, generally, pp.264-279 on this point.32 GM Preface §7.33 See GM I:4-6 in particular.34 See GM II:5-8.

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of historically documented facts ought to guide moral genealogy, especially where, as with the brutal

forms of punishment listed in GM II (and, to a lesser extent, with the older 'aristocratic' meanings

unearthed for 'good' and 'bad'), our modern moral intuitions and sympathies stand so strongly opposed

to, are repulsed by, what the historical facts suggest. For, in such cases, we are most apt to falsify and

distort the history of morals, unless we pay close attention to the facts.

Again, if Nietzsche questions the values posited by the 'unconditional will to truth,' it doesn't

follow that he undermines the factual character or the truth of the kinds of historical facts just noted.

FW §344 is particularly illuminating here. For Nietzsche there again affirms the importance, for

philosophy, of the morally grounded, i.e., the anti-pragmatic will to truth, while at the same time

questioning the values and faith that seem to be posited by it:

Doch man wird es begriffen haben, worauf ich hinaus will, nämlich dass es immer noch ein metaphysischer Glaube ist, auf dem unser Glaube an die Wissenschaft ruht, – dass auch wir Erkennenden von heute, wir Gottlosen und Antimetaphysiker, auch unser Feuer noch von dem Brande nehmen, den ein Jahrtausende alter Glaube entzündet hat, jener Christen-Glaube, der auch der Glaube Plato's war, dass Gott die Wahrheit ist, dass Wahrheit göttlich ist ... Aber wie, wenn dies gerade immer mehr unglaubwürdig wird, wenn Nichts sich mehr als göttlich erweist, es sei denn der Irrtum, die Blindheit, die Lüge, – wenn Gott selbst sich als unsre längste Lüge erweist? –

We saw earlier that Nietzsche tends, in talking about the evolutionary-pragmatic function of

truth dominant throughout our 'prehistory,' to refer rhetorically to basic modes of thinking, of logic and

of perception as indispensable falsehoods, as fundamental errors. But he notes that, properly speaking,

they have developed rather into the norms of knowledge themselves, according to which we measure

'true' and 'false.' In all of the passages we have been considering in which Nietzsche raises the question

of the unconditional will to truth, he does so not to question the objectivity of historical or everyday

facts, but to question the positing of truth as an absolute value. For the absence of such questioning

constitutes a 'gap' in every philosophy thus far: 'Weil das asketische Ideal über alle Philosophie bisher

Herr war, weil Wahrheit als Sein, als Gott, als oberste Instanz selbst gesetzt wurde, weil Wahrheit gar

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nicht Problem sein durfte. Versteht man dies “durfte”? – Von dem Augenblick an, wo der Glaube an

den Gott des asketischen Ideals verneint ist, gibt es auch ein neues Problem: das vom Werte der

Wahrheit.'35 And this, Nietzsche says once again, is his fundamental problem: 'welchen Sinn hätte unser

ganzes Sein, wenn nicht den, dass in uns jener Wille zur Wahrheit sich selbst als Problem zum

Bewusstsein gekommen wäre?'36

This naturally presupposes that the will to truth, in this problematic, 'fatal' and anti-pragmatic

sense, has been to a great extent 'incorporated.' Nietzsche's aim is not to affirm a pragmatic,

perspectival conception of truth against the 'refined honesty and scepticism' of the former, but to turn

this refined scepticism on the will to truth itself. What does this mean? Principally, it means carrying

out a genealogy of morality, in particular, of the will to truth itself. The refined scepticism of the will to

truth is forced, finally, to renounce faith in a realm 'beyond,' from the perspective of which the value of

life, of 'this' world, as a whole could be judged. The value of the will to truth, its character and

significance, must be interpreted against the facts of our moral past, against 'die ganze lange, schwer zu

entziffernde Hieroglyphenschrift der Moral-Vergangenheit.'37 It's precisely at this point, as we saw in

chapter 3, that Nietzsche raises his most serious criticism of Kant and Schopenhauer: they fail to

interpret their own understanding and experience of moral values and moral will-determination in

terms of the actual development of these values, and of the drives and instincts that largely determine

the meaning of these values, according to Nietzsche – though he crucially allows that these drives and

instincts can also be transformed, to some extent.

Though Nietzsche takes historically established facts to guide his moral genealogy, there is

naturally debate about these facts, given the imperfect records we inevitably work from in establishing

them. But I don't see any good reason to read Nietzsche as questioning the objectivity of such facts on

35 GM III:24.36 GM III:27.37 GM Preface §7.

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the basis of a perspectival conception of truth, or on the basis of any 'thoroughgoing perspectivism.' In

order to address concerns that some such doctrine lurks in Nietzsche, it therefore seems best to proceed

by looking at a few representative interpretations of Nietzsche that place perspectivism at the core of

his philosophy.

4.3 'Thoroughgoing perspectivism': 'aestheticism,', naturalism, postmodernism

I will not develop detailed rebuttals to the positions considered here, but simply point out what I

take to be serious difficulties they entail, given our discussion thus far. One highly influential

'perspectivist' interpretation of Nietzsche comes from Nehemas' Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Of

course, Nehemas' interpretation is influential not simply on the basis of its being perspectivist. He

offers a distinctive interpretation of Nietzsche's work as the attempt to create a literary character

'Nietzsche' as an example of the kind of self-creation Nietzsche values. For my purposes, however, I

will focus on Nehamas' interpretation of Nietzsche's conception of truth.

Nehamas helpfully tackles head-on the usual objections and difficulties raised against

perspectivist conceptions of truth. He first offers a broad characterization of Nietzsche's perspectivism

'as the thesis (P) that every view is an interpretation.'38 However, as Nehamas points out, if (P) is true

and therefore applies to itself, then 'not every view need be an interpretation, and (P) seems to have

refuted itself.'39 Nehamas counters that, while it is true that if '(P) is an interpretation, it may indeed be

false,' still we cannot equate (P) being 'possibly false with the fact that it is actually false.' For the latter

we would have to show that 'some views are actually not interpretations.' That is, as long as we see that

'(P) does not assert that every view necessarily is an interpretation,' we're safe – it only states, Nehamas

seems to be saying, (P*) that every view is an interpretation, but this may be false.

38 Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985, p.66. In the following, all citations to Nehamas are given with pages numbers from this publication, unless otherwise indicated.

39 Nehamas, p.66. The remaining quotations in this paragraph are also from p.66.

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There may be more charitable ways to state Nehamas' conclusion, but I think that (P*) fairly

captures his point. In any case, I think more serious problems emerge when Nehamas comes to his

more direct, or less formal, interpretation of Nietzsche's conception of truth. Consider, for instance,

how Nehamas proposes to deal with the central difficulty he sees in GM, which he characterizes as

follows: 'But if Nietzsche’s genealogical interpretation of the ascetic ideal shows that it too is

affirmative and a manifestation of the will to power, on what grounds can he possibly criticize it?'40

Nehamas argues that '[p]art of the answer to this question' is that the 'ascetic ideal does not rest content

with ordering the lives of those who may actually need it.'41 For, according to Nehamas, the

'interpretations Nietzsche praises, unlike the ascetic ideal, declare that this is what they are, proclaim

that they are in two senses partial, and invite their own questioning.'42 This 'last feature is crucial' says

Nehamas, and no doubt Nietzsche admires the courage to question, and to invite questioning, of one's

own interpretations. But it's hard to follow Nehamas in the incredible emphasis he places on this point

and on the – again rather formal – paradoxes that he sees generated as a result. Nehamas characterizes

'one of the central difficulties [Nietzsche’s] own writing generates and aims to resolve' as follows:

An interpretation, simply by virtue of its being offered, is inevitably offered in the conviction that it is true. But then, despite any assurances to the contrary, it is presented as a view which everybody must accept on account of its being true. When we show that some other enterprise is partial, even as we assert that ours is partial as well, we implicitly and perhaps against our will commend what we do to universal attention. […] Asceticism, we have seen, tries to conceal that it is an interpretation. Attacking it and demonstrating that it is after all an interpretation is still done in the name of truth. And as long as this commitment is made, the dogmatism on which asceticism depends has not been eliminated.43

Recall that in chapter 3 we saw how Nietzsche does, indeed, criticize the asceticism

Schopenhauer advances for concealing its own partial nature. In particular, Schopenhauer presents

ascetic renunciation as the consequence of clear insight into the inner nature of will, from the

40 Nehamas, p.125.41 Nehamas, p.125.42 Nehamas, p.129.43 Nehamas, p.131.

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perspective of a pure knowing subject, freed from individuality and empirical sensibility. I interpreted

Nietzsche's criticism there as targeting especially Schopenhauer's lack of historical sense, his disregard,

that is, for the historical or 'genealogical' development of the ascetic ideal and the nihilistic repression

of natural drives. On this view, Nietzsche can counter the kind of account Schopenhauer gives with his

own genealogical account, on the grounds that the genealogical account is more sensitive, and truer, to

the facts. Nietzsche can claim, that is, that genealogy is a better methodology, precisely because it

measures its interpretation against historical and empirical facts, rather than speculating about an

intelligible realm as the locus of truth in-itself, or of will-less knowing.

By contrast, Nehamas takes Nietzsche to criticize any interpretation that presents itself simply

as true, as opposed to 'merely interpretation.' On Nehamas' view, then, an important challenge for

Nietzsche’s philosophy is to find a way out of the paradoxes involved in advancing perspectives that

one knows are merely perspectives, and wants to advance as perspectives. Nehamas argues that this

cannot be achieved simply by attacking asceticism and science in a straightforwardly scientific and

truthful manner. The following quotation gives the outlines of Nehamas' solution to these difficulties,

including one suggestion that is, for reasons noted below, somewhat astounding:

Nietzsche knows these difficulties. This is why he writes that 'in the most spiritual sphere, too, the ascetic ideal has at present only one kind of real enemy capable of harming it: the comedians of this ideal – for they arouse mistrust in it' (GM III, 27). Nietzsche tries to be such a comedian [sic!] – which does not necessarily involve being funny. Rather, it involves the effort to reveal the inner contradictions and deceptions of asceticism, to denounce it, and yet not produce a view that itself unwittingly repeats the same contradictions and deceptions, for to repeat these is to fail to arouse mistrust in the ascetic ideal; on the contrary, it is to offer a demonstration that it is inescapable. This is the task Nietzsche sets for himself […]44

Nehamas holds that Nietzsche's general and innovative approach to carrying out this task is to

create a literary character of himself. But what's stunning in the above passage is that Nehamas has

quoted from a section of GM in which Nietzsche cannot restrain his disgust and contempt for the

44 Nehamas, pp.133-4.

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'comedians' of the ascetic ideal. I think it's impossible to read this section in a way that has Nietzsche

wanting to be such a comedian. Consider the passage in which Nietzsche introduces these 'comedians

of the ideal':

Alle meine Ehrfurcht dem asketischen ideale, sofern es ehrlich ist! Solange es an sich selber glaubt und uns keine Possen vormacht! Aber ich mag alle diese koketten Wanzen nicht, deren Ehrgeiz unersättlich darin ist, nach dem Unendlichen zu riechen, bis zuletzt das Unendliche nach Wanzen riecht; [...] ich mag die ehrgeizigen Künstler nicht, die den Asketen und Priester bedeuten möchten und im Grunde nur tragische Hanswürste sind; ich mag auch sie nicht, diese neuesten Spekulanten in Idealismus, die Antisemiten, welche heute ihre Augen christlich-arisch-biedermännisch verdrehn und durch einen jede Geduld erschöpfenden Missbrauch des wohlfeilsten Agitationsmittels, der moralischen Attitüde, alle Hornvieh-Elemente des Volkes aufzuregen suchen […]45

In the very same section, Nietzsche first uses the term 'comedians of the Christian-moral [or ascetic]

ideal' itself, continuing in diatribe, 'ich möchte wissen, wieviel Schiffsladungen von nachgemachtem

Idealismus, von Helden-Kostümen und Klapperblech grosser Worte [...] wieviel Komödianten des

christlich-moralischen Ideals heute aus Europa exportiert werden müssten, damit seine Luft wieder

reinlicher röche.'46

It seems that Nehamas' focus in attributing to Nietzsche a perspectival doctrine of truth forces

him to see Nietzsche as merely an external critic of the ascetic ideal and of its 'kernel,' the

unconditional will to truth. As such an external critic, Nietzsche cannot turn the unconditional, anti-

pragmatic will to truth on itself, for to do so would be to advance a critique of the will to truth that

we're supposed to 'accept on account of its being true.' Nietzsche can thus only hope to ape the ideal as

a comedian. I think the difficulties of this interpretation, at least as it relates to Nietzsche's conception

of truth and to his contempt for the comedians of the ascetic ideal, are overwhelming.

Nietzsche's supposed epistemological perspectivism also finds a nice fit with certain forms of

naturalism, as illustrated, for instance, by Cristoph Cox's extensive study, Nietzsche: Naturalism and

45 GM III:26.46 GM III:26.

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Interpretation.47 I will focus selectively on a few key features and conclusions of Cox's argument.

Although Cox doesn't focus primarily on moral questions in Nietzsche's philosophy, it should be clear

from what has been said thus far that any thoroughgoing perspectivist interpretation will have

important consequences for how we understand Nietzsche's critique of morality. As should also be clear

from the discussion thus far, my intention is not to deny that Nietzsche is in some sense a naturalist.

Here I want simply to argue that his naturalism does not commit him to any 'thoroughgoing

perspectivism.'

Cox views Nietzsche as contending with the dual threat of dogmatism and relativism. Cox lays

out his general position on Nietzsche's 'thoroughgoing perspectivism' with the claim that Nietzsche has

'a conception of truth as relative to conceptual frameworks'48 For Cox, Nietzsche's opposition to

dogmatism is clear, meaning that the more difficult interpretive work must focus on the threat of

relativism, which arises from the characterization just given of Nietzsche's conception of truth. Cox

argues that Nietzsche's commitment to naturalism constrains his perspectivism, allowing him finally to

navigate between the extremes of dogmatism and relativism. As Cox puts it:

The apparent relativism of perspectivism is held in check by Nietzsche's naturalism, which offers the doctrines of will to power and becoming in place of all theological interpretations; the apparent dogmatism of will to power and becoming is mitigated by perspectivism, which grants that will to power and becoming are themselves interpretations, yet ones that are better by naturalistic standards.49

The notion that truth is relative to conceptual frameworks presumably means that we cannot

justifiably claim that any standards of truth or validity hold across all such frameworks. This raises the

question of how the 'naturalistic standards' referred to in the above passage can be used to judge which

interpretations are better.50 Cox anticipates this question with the acknowledgment: 'Of course

47 University of California Press, Berkeley, 1999. In the following, all citations to Cox are given with page numbers from this publication, unless otherwise indicated.

48 Cox, p.67.49 Cox, p.3.50 It also raises the question of the meaning of 'better' here. For it can't mean better at capturing a true description of the

world, given that the world has 'no essential character' and 'there are as many ways the world is as there are

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Nietzsche grants that even his naturalism is an interpretation and not a matter of fact.'51 Thus we have

interpretation 'all the way down,' such that even when we give standards, naturalistic or otherwise, for

adjudicating between interpretations, we must grant that these standards are themselves part of some

interpretation, and therefore relative to a particular conceptual framework. Hence the difficulty in

taking perspectivism to be a fundamental philosophical position of Nietzsche's (or of anyone else).

Inevitably, one wants to find some legitimate means of judging perspectives and interpretations in

relation to one another, but this seems foreclosed within this perspectivist framework. It's telling that

Cox follows the above acknowledgment by gesturing towards an ethical ground for Nietzsche's

naturalism: 'Yet [Nietzsche] maintains that his own naturalistic interpretation has “honesty” and

“intellectual conscience” on its side, insofar as it takes up and pushes to the limit a centuries-old “will

to truth” that finally forbids itself the lie involved in absolutist interpretations.' 52

But why the scare quotes? Surely Nietzsche thinks that his philosophy has both honesty and

intellectual conscience on its side, not merely 'honesty' and 'intellectual conscience.' The difficulty for

the thoroughgoing perspectivist interpretation is that, absent the scare quotes, such claims make appeal

to values that hold not merely relative to particular conceptual frameworks. Indeed, Nietzsche intends,

so I've been urging, his genealogical claims to hold true when measured against the factual backdrop of

our evolutionary, social and moral history, the factuality of which he does not relativize to particular

conceptual frameworks. If someone should argue that human evolutionary, social and moral history

itself constitutes, or has produced, a conceptual framework within which we necessarily interpret

ourselves and the world around us, then that is an entirely different matter. As noted earlier, Nietzsche

surely does hold that truth, so far as we can grasp it (or as far as it can exist at all), is relative to such a

'conceptual framework.' But this is no more perspectivist (however different it may be in other

“perspectives and affective interpretations”' (p.104).51 Cox, p.106.52 Cox, p.106.

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respects) than, for instance, Kant's claim that we can have knowledge only of objects existing in space

and time, which just happen to be the forms of intuition we humans have, whatever other forms of

intuition may or may not be possible.

It's worth noting two typical characteristics about passages in which Nietzsche opposes

perspective and interpretation to 'disinterested' objectivity, which presumes 'ein Auge, das durchaus

keine Richtung haben soll.'53 First, Nietzsche typically describes the second half of this opposition in

terms of belief in an 'intelligible world' as inner metaphysical reality entirely independent of human

nature and history. Hence Nietzsche's 'warning': 'Hüten wir uns nämlich, meine Herren Philosophen,

von nun an besser vor der gefährlichen alten Begriffs-Fabelei, welche ein “reines, willenloses,

schmerzloses, zeitloses Subjekt der Erkenntnis” angesetzt hat, hüten wir uns vor den Fangarmen

solcher kontradiktorischer Begriffe wie “reine Vernunft,” “absolute Geistigkeit,” “Erkenntnis an sich”

[...]'54 Nietzsche's philosophy is naturalistic here in the sense that it excludes 'a priori' knowledge,

insofar as the latter means knowledge justified independently of empirical facts, especially facts of

human evolutionary, social and moral history.

This brings us to the second characteristic of the passages in question, namely their emphasis on

perspective and interpretation. Here the important thing to note is that Nietzsche emphasizes that facts

require interpretation. Thus, for instance, in discussing the connection (examined earlier in sections 3.3

and 3.4 of chapter 3) between philosophy and the ascetic ideal, Nietzsche states that there is 'eine

eigentliche Philosophen-Voreingenommenheit und -Herzlichkeit in bezug auf das ganze asketische

Ideal [...] fehlt beides an einem Philosophen, so ist er dessen sei man sicher—immer nur ein

“sogenannter.”'55 For Nietzsche, this is the kind of fact about the history of morals that requires

interpretation, that leads the philosopher to ask: 'Was bedeutet das? Denn man muss diesen Tatbestand

53 GM III:12.54 GM III:12.55 GM III:7.

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erst interpretieren: an sich steht er da, dumm in alle Ewigkeit, wie jedes “Ding an sich.”'56 Nietzsche is

undoubtedly claiming that there exists, as a matter of fact, a philosopher's inclination towards the

ascetic ideal. (As a claim about matters of fact, it might, of course, be false, and this would undermine

any argument based on it.) He points out, however, that merely as such, as a fact about philosophers, it

doesn't mean anything, has no significance until interpreted; hence Nietzsche sometimes claims that

there are no moral facts or phenomena.57 Nonetheless, there can certainly be better or worse moral

interpretations of the facts belonging to the history of human evolution, social development, and

morals. The facts themselves are not tied to any 'conceptual' or interpretive framework, unless, again,

we consider something like the human perspective (or the perspective encompassing human

evolutionary, social and moral history more or less as a whole) to be a 'conceptual framework.'

In other words, we need to distinguish the seemingly perspectival character of claims about the

meaning and significance of empirical or historical facts from the straightforwardly factual nature of

these facts themselves. Here 'straightforwardly factual' is meant to allow for the relativity of the truth of

such facts to some 'global' human conceptual framework, insofar as we cannot affirm that such facts are

true 'in themselves' independently of human faculties and the human perspective. The worry here is not

so much that these facts might be false from some other perspective, but rather that we cannot make

intelligible such 'non-commensurable' frameworks. In any case, the historical facts about human

evolution, social development and morals, as well as empirically established facts about human nature

and the world around us, provide a broad touchstone and backdrop of facts against which to measure

our interpretations of the meaning and significance of given subsets of these facts – as also to evaluate

particular moral beliefs, commitments, actions, etc.

Consider, then, how Cox characterizes Nietzsche's commitment to his 'naturalistic position':

56 GM III:7.57 E.g., JGB §108: 'Es giebt gar keine moralischen Phänomene, sondern nur eine moralische Ausdeutung von

Phänomenen ...'

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In short, Nietzsche grants that his view is itself an interpretation, which is all it could ever be; but he challenges objectors to come up with a better one. He is indeed committed to his naturalistic position yet well aware that it does not settle matters once and for all but only ushers in “new struggles” (GS [FW] 108) – which, like all struggles and contests, Nietzsche encouraged and relished.58

'Naturalistic position' here is somewhat ambiguous, insofar as it might mean either (1) the

particular interpretation Nietzsche gives of (certain facts in) the history of morals (which position is

naturalistic insofar as it takes such facts to guide its methodology) or (2) Nietzsche's general

methodological claim that facts about our evolutionary, social and moral history provide the evidence

against which we must measure particular interpretations in the sense of (1). If Cox is calling only the

former 'interpretation,' i.e., if 'naturalistic position' in the above passage covers only the meaning given

in (1), then Nietzsche is not a thoroughgoing perspectivist, since he can still hold unambiguously to (2),

which claims (only very roughly here, but at least suggesting the ability to spell the claim out in more

detail) that there is a standard or measure of truth (though perhaps 'underdetermining') that holds across

all conceptual frameworks or interpretations in the sense of (1).

Since Cox argues that Nietzsche is committed to thoroughgoing perspectivism, it would seem

that we can read 'naturalistic position' in the above passage with the meaning given in (2). But then the

insistence that Nietzsche 'is indeed committed to his naturalistic position' rings somewhat hollow, for

the question as to what motivates this commitment seems to be left without an answer. Much like

Nehamas, Cox has Nietzsche putting forward a position – of thoroughgoing perspectivism, or relativity

of truth to conceptual frameworks, or interpretation 'all the way down' – supposedly central to his

philosophy, and in almost the same breath admitting, even insisting, that his position is no more

justified than that of any other perspective. Simply falling back on Nietzsche's 'relishing of all struggles

and contests' doesn't, it seems to me, give Nietzsche much credit as a philosopher.

In support of his reading, Cox cites in several places59 the line of FW §344 in which Nietzsche

58 Cox, p.106.59 At least, pp.25, 33, 43, 69, 71, 73, 101n, 162.

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calls 'our world' the 'world of life, nature and history.' In particular, Cox suggests that '[f]ollowing the

lead of science, Nietzsche attempts to resituate truth and knowledge within the world of life, nature and

history.'60 This is fair insofar as Nietzsche takes empirically established or recorded facts of life, nature

and history as the material for philosophical interpretation, particularly interpretation as to moral

significance and expression of values. But Cox, as we've seen, doesn't seem to differentiate – or to

allow that Nietzsche differentiates – between (the straightforwardly factual nature of) facts about life,

nature and history, and the work of interpreting these facts with an eye to their moral significance.

Nietzsche, by contrast, insists that this interpretive work must be distinguished from the scientific work

of establishing facts about life, nature and history. Consider, for instance, the following passage from

the Preface to FW, where Nietzsche gives a broad description of his philosophical project as a whole.

Man darf alle jene kühnen Tollheiten der Metaphysik, sonderlich deren Antworten auf die Frage nach dem Wert des Daseins, zunächst immer als Symptome bestimmter Leiber ansehn; und wenn derartigen Welt-Bejahungen oder Welt-Verneinungen in Bausch und Bogen, wissenschaftlich gemessen, nicht ein Korn von Bedeutung innewohnt, so geben sie doch dem Historiker und Psychologen um so wertvollere Winke, als Symptome, wie gesagt, des Leibes, seines Geratens und Missratens, seiner Fülle, Mächtigkeit, Selbstherrlichkeit in der Geschichte, oder aber seiner Hemmungen, Ermüdungen, Verarmungen, seines Vorgefühls vom Ende, seines Willens zum Ende.61

Here again we find the Nietzschean distinction between the record of historical and empirical

facts, and the philosophical work of interpreting these facts. Here the facts themselves consist of the

various articulations of value judgments about existence, where Nietzsche obviously has in mind the

kinds of articulations that have had important cultural resonance and influence. (Hence Nietzsche's

interest in the value judgments expressed through major world religions, Christianity in particular.) If

these value judgments 'lack any grain of significance when measured scientifically,' that's because they

don't affirm anything that can be substantiated by empirically established facts. But they offer

important material for interpretation to the philosopher (or to the philosophically-inclined historian and

60 Cox, p.33.61 FW Preface §2.

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psychologist) with a view to 'establishing an order of rank among values,' as Nietzsche defines the task

of the philosopher in a note appended to GM I. There too, he describes the scientific work of

philologists, physicians, etc., as preparatory for the interpretive work of philosophers.

Where Nietzsche points to a distinctive perspective or interpretation underlying science, or to

its necessary presuppositions, he generally has in mind the valuational perspective implicit in 'faith' in

science. His point is then to question the faith in this valuational perspective, that is, to question the

valuing of truth above all else – not to question the factual character of the particular results established

empirically. Thus, in FW §344 itself, Nietzsche points to a moral ground and a 'metaphysical faith'

supporting the 'faith in science': 'Dergestalt führt die Frage: warum Wissenschaft? zurück auf das

moralische Problem — wozu überhaupt Moral, wenn Leben, Natur, Geschichte “unmoralisch” sind?'

Similarly, in GM III:24, Nietzsche insists that 'eine Philosophie, ein “Glaube” muss immer erst da sein,

damit aus ihm die Wissenschaft eine Richtung, einen Sinn, eine Grenze, eine Methode, ein Recht auf

Dasein gewinnt.'

Cox argues that when Nietzsche criticizes science in this way, he is arguing that science is not

yet 'natural enough,' that it has not rid itself of the 'shadows of God.'62 Nietzsche does sometimes

criticize modern science as still in the grip of various grammatical-theological posits, or as holding to

the faith in atoms as an 'earth-residuum.'63 But these particular points of criticism are distinct from the

broader and more important point that it's from the metaphysical faith in truth that, as Nietzsche puts it,

'we godless anti-metaphysicians still take our fire.' Nietzsche doesn't hold that we can

unproblematically do away with this faith, this moral ground of science by freeing science from the

remaining 'shadows of God.' Science, as the work of a 'Fachmensch,' of a 'wind-up intellect' that can

just as easily make of itself 'einen guten Philologen oder Pilzekenner oder Chemiker,'64 can do without

62 See Cox, p.91ff.63 See, e.g., GD 'Die Vernunft in der Philosophie' §5, JGB §12.64 JGB §6.

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metaphysics, without faith in a guiding purpose or unconditional value of truth. But the philosopher

cannot ignore that science needs a 'faith' in order to acquire and maintain a direction, a meaning, a

limit, a method, a right to exist. The philosopher has to come to terms with the faith and the moral

ground animating science, as that which animates also the philosopher's will to truth. To simply chase

away the 'shadows of God' – without acknowledging that these very shadows are cast by the faith that

has so far given science its direction, its meaning, its limit, its methodology, and its right to exist – is to

reduce science to the work of 'Fachmenschen,' of work tools or cogs in a machine.

Any naturalist interpretation of Nietzsche that sees a doctrine of 'thoroughgoing perspectivism'

at its foundation – blurring the distinction between, on the one hand, the factual character of

empirically established facts about life, nature and history, and the philosophical interpretation of moral

significance and values – is likely to miss, or at least misunderstand, the distinction, crucial for

Nietzsche, between the perspectival character of the faith in science, of the will to truth 'at all costs,'

and the straightforwardly factual character of particular truths established empirically by science

(understood broadly to include history and the social as well as the natural sciences). For the purposes

of his genealogy and critique of morality, Nietzsche, at least for the most part, assumes without worry

or epistemological quibble the truth and actuality of, for instance, historical fact – e.g., of the

philologically-established etymology of words for 'good,' 'bad' and 'evil' in Greek, Latin and German,

of the ancient and medieval legal codes and forms of punishment, of broad facts of human evolution

and physiology, etc. The distinction between the factual character of such particular truths, on the one

hand, and interpretations of moral significance, on the other, might seem obvious, in a general sense,

but we easily lose hold of it once we opt for the kind of thoroughgoing perspectivism that claims

'everything' is interpretation. It's generally only when truth is raised to the status of underlying or inner

meaning, purpose, character, or ideal of life that Nietzsche insists this elevation is no more than

interpretation. Where science is divorced from any such interpretation, Nietzsche looks on more with

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approval for its potential usefulness – or at most bemusement and irritation if such scientific labour is

thought to displace philosophy – than with any concern to undermine its claim to uncover genuine

facts. As he puts the point in JGB §6:

In der That, man thut gut (und klug), zur Erklärung davon, wie eigentlich die entlegensten metaphysischen Behauptungen eines Philosophen zu Stande gekommen sind, sich immer erst zu fragen: auf welche Moral will es (will er -) hinaus? Ich glaube demgemäss nicht, dass ein "Trieb zur Erkenntniss" der Vater der Philosophie ist, sondern dass sich ein andrer Trieb, hier wie sonst, der Erkenntniss (und der Verkenntniss!) nur wie eines Werkzeugs bedient hat. Wer aber die Grundtriebe des Menschen darauf hin ansieht, wie weit sie gerade hier als inspirirende Genien (oder Dämonen und Kobolde -) ihr Spiel getrieben haben mögen, wird finden, dass sie Alle schon einmal Philosophie getrieben haben, - und dass jeder Einzelne von ihnen gerade sich gar zu gerne als letzten Zweck des Daseins und als berechtigten Herrn aller übrigen Triebe darstellen möchte. Denn jeder Trieb ist herrschsüchtig: und als solcher versucht er zu philosophiren. - Freilich: bei den Gelehrten, den eigentlich wissenschaftlichen Menschen, mag es anders stehn - "besser", wenn man will -, da mag es wirklich so Etwas wie einen Erkenntnisstrieb geben, irgend ein kleines unabhängiges Uhrwerk, welches, gut aufgezogen, tapfer darauf los arbeitet, ohne dass die gesammten übrigen Triebe des Gelehrten wesentlich dabei betheiligt sind. Die eigentlichen "Interessen" des Gelehrten liegen deshalb gewöhnlich ganz wo anders, etwa in der Familie oder im Gelderwerb oder in der Politik; ja es ist beinahe gleichgültig, ob seine kleine Maschine an diese oder jene Stelle der Wissenschaft gestellt wird, und ob der "hoffnungsvolle" junge Arbeiter aus sich einen guten Philologen oder Pilzekenner oder Chemiker macht: - es bezeichnet ihn nicht, dass er dies oder jenes wird. Umgekehrt ist an dem Philosophen ganz und gar nichts Unpersönliches; und insbesondere giebt seine Moral ein entschiedenes und entscheidendes Zeugniss dafür ab, wer er ist - das heisst, in welcher Rangordnung die innersten Triebe seiner Natur zu einander gestellt sind.

Here again, Nietzsche makes clear that the drives behind the will to truth are what interests him,

because these drives, insofar as they subordinate the drive to knowledge, among others, to their own

purposes, express that 'most spiritual will to power' that is philosophy itself. As the will to truth has

gradually freed itself from moral and religious dogma, the will to truth 'at any price,' i.e., aiming at

freedom from subordination to any ulterior drives or purposes, has grown into a defining character of

modern morality, at least where the latter 'still believes in itself,' which for Nietzsche means among

'free spirits' in particular. It is to this aim and striving that Nietzsche wants to turn a critical eye, and to

stress that laying unconditional value on truth, as an ultimate ideal or as the inner being of the world, is

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itself a particular organization of drives and an order of rank among them, and remains, therefore, an

interpretation precisely because it rests 'on moral ground.'

By contrast, where such interpretation is lacking, where there is no philosophical drive or

concern with values, Nietzsche does not make the same critical point. I see no reason to think

Nietzsche would deny that what the 'good philologist or expert in fungi or chemist' discovers are indeed

facts in a sense that is epistemically untroubling. As we saw in chapter 3, Nietzsche thinks that in his

philosophy, or as he also likes to put it, in him, the will to truth has for the first time becomes conscious

of itself as a problem. The problem concerns the value of an unconditional will to truth for life, or more

specifically, for human nature, which is still defined by the struggle between the processes of

socialization and our ever-present 'animal prehistory.' When this problem is instead taken as an

epistemological matter, where the critical impetus is to relativize all truth and facts to conceptual

frameworks, we will naturally struggle to make sense of Nietzsche's claims that his critique of morality

has intellectual cleanliness and honesty on its side, since he bases these claims on his sticking to the

facts of our moral past, even where this is painful, rather than looking off 'into the blue,' in the 'English

fashion,'65 or building a system out of mere personal experience and idiosyncrasy, in the dogmatist

fashion.66

Nietzsche is entirely unconcerned here by any questions as to which 'conceptual framework' he

is using when asserting facts of history. Doubts as to the truth of historical fact in any given case will

have to do essentially with the evidence and records available, rather than with what conceptual

framework is being deployed. In short, I think that naturalist interpretations in the style of Cox, insofar

as they take the problem of the will to truth to be fundamentally an epistemological problem for

Nietzsche, undermine the claims to intellectual cleanliness and honesty Nietzsche makes for his

critique of morality, as suggested by Cox's own scare-quoting of these terms.

65 See the Preface to GM.66 See the Preface to JGB.

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Finally, we might consider 'postmodernist' interpretations of Nietzsche according to which he

values perspectivism, or pluralism, as 'liberation' from a repressive regime of some sort. Of course,

there is no single or easily identifiable 'postmodernist' interpretation of Nietzsche. But for our limited

purposes here, we can take one interpretation, self-identified as postmodernist, to indicate the

difficulties that come with taking Nietzsche to be advancing a perspectivist position on the basis of his

valuing liberation from a repressive truth regime.

In her article, 'Nietzsche’s Madman: Perspectivism without Nihilism,'67 Debra Bergoffen argues

that Nietzsche's defense of the decentered perspective of perspectivism is not grounded in the claim that this is the true perspective but in the affirmation that decentered perspectivism is less repressive than the absolute perspective of the center. Nietzsche's argument necessarily appeals to the judgment which values the lifting of a repression but does not, as we shall see, ask that we make this judgment unreflectively.68

Thus Nietzsche would value perspectivism for its own sake, as providing a perspective that is

less repressive than that of the center. Yet the passages which most notably recommend a plurality of

perspectives also tend to emphasize control over these perspectives. For instance, in JGB §211

Nietzsche emphasizes the philosopher's need for a whole range of experiences, 'um den Umkreis

menschlicher Werthe und Werth-Gefühle zu durchlaufen und mit vielerlei Augen und Gewissen, von

der Höhe in jede Ferne, von der Tiefe in jede Höhe, von der Ecke in jede Weite, blicken zu können.'

But Nietzsche does not value this plurality of perspectives for its own sake, for in the very next

sentence he insists: 'Aber dies Alles sind nur Vorbedingungen seiner Aufgabe: diese Aufgabe selbst will

etwas Anderes, – sie verlangt, dass er Werthe schaffe.' Similarly, in GM III:12, Nietzsche values, as

noted earlier, 'das Vermögen, sein Für und Wider in der Gewalt zu haben und aus- und einzuhängen,'69

to employ perspectives for something beyond mere knowledge of these multiple perspectives. The

67 pp.57-71 in Nietzsche as Postmodernist, ed. by Clayton Koelb, State University of NewYork Press, 1990. In the following, all citations to Bergoffen are given with page number to this publication, unless otherwise indicated.

68 Bergoffen, p.57.69 Nietzsche also emphasizes control over one’s For and Against' at BGE §284.

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fundamental task, for Nietzsche, is the creation and 'determination of the order of rank among values,' a

matter not simply of knowledge and plurality of perspectives, but of 'die Vergeistigung der

Gerechtigkeit und jener gütigen Strenge [...], welche sich beauftragt weiss, die Ordnung des Ranges in

der Welt aufrecht zu erhalten, unter den Dingen selbst - und nicht nur unter Menschen.'70

The mention of an order of rank that holds 'not only among men' is important here, because

Bergoffen goes on to give the following interpretation of the aphorism of the 'madman' (FW §125):

Thus the many perspectives are not treated as inferior substitutes for the desired one [i.e., the Absolute, God]. The human is not all that is left. It is everything that is. Instead of measuring the truth of the human perspective against the truth of the absolute perspective in order to find it lacking, Nietzsche makes the human perspective the standard of measure.71

As an interpretation of Nietzsche, this runs into real difficulties. For this interpretation of the

madman passage will be hard to square with Nietzsche's repeated insistence: 'Die ganze Attitüde

“Mensch gegen Welt,” der Mensch als “Welt-verneinendes” Prinzip, der Mensch als Wertmaß der

Dinge, als Welten-Richter [...] die ungeheuerliche Abgeschmacktheit dieser Attitüde ist uns als solche

zum Bewusstsein gekommen und verleidet '72 Or, again, from §12 (B) of The Will to Power: 'the

hyperbolic naïveté of man: positing himself as the meaning and measure of the value of things.'73

As we saw in sections 4.1 and 4.2, Nietzsche develops an evolutionary-pragmatic account of

truth, insofar as he sees the basic ways in which we order experience, including fundamental concepts

of logic and Kantian 'synthetic a priori truths,' as growing out of human evolution under the pressures

of natural selection. These basic ways of organizing experience, and the corresponding concepts and

truths, eventually became our very 'norms' of knowledge. We can call this a conceptual framework if

we like, but it is clearly not one conceptual framework among others for us, anymore than, for instance,

time and space are, for Kant, forms of sensibility among others for us, to use again an earlier example.

70 BGE §219; cf. also §213, §263. 71 Bergoffen, p.68.72 FW §346.73 From The Will to Power, tr. Walter Kaufmann, Random House, New York, 1967, p.14.

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Where Nietzsche questions the will to truth, he is interested in the values posited by, and the

commitments expressed through, this will, i.e., in the organization and development of the drives and

instincts that he traces and analyzes as the driving forces behind such a will.

Thoroughgoing perspectivist interpretations of Nietzsche run into trouble for a variety of

reasons, important instances of which I've tried to highlight in this section. First, the approach Nehamas

takes, according to which Nietzsche wants to avoid advancing his perspective 'as truth,' largely empties

Nietzsche's moral philosophy of its critical impetus, leaving him merely to enact a satire or comedy of

the will to truth as part of a greater artistic rendition of individuality. The naturalist interpretation of

Cox also drains Nietzsche of his real critical impulse, relativizing truth to conceptual frameworks in a

way Nietzsche does not, and leaving 'intellectual cleanliness' and 'honesty' as catchphrases through

which Nietzsche inaugurates 'new struggles' and philosophical challenges. Finally, the postmodernist

interpretation of Bergoffen has Nietzsche celebrating pluralism and man as the measure of values in a

sense completely foreign to Nietzsche's philosophy, indeed one to which he seems downright hostile.

Conclusion

In the closing sections of GM III, Nietzsche defines the meaning and purpose of his philosophy

(and of his very existence) as that of the will to truth brought to consciousness of itself as a problem.

Nietzsche's genealogical method, taking the facts of human evolution and history as its material for

interpretation, is meant to uncover the will to truth as the 'kernel' of the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche here

interprets the will to truth as the commanding thought of (Western Judeo-Christian) morality itself;74 in

chapter 3, we saw how, in a roughly similar sense, the self-legislation of the moral law (or the

recognition of being bound by the moral law through one's own nature as a rational being) is the

74 There may be something idiosyncratic in Nietzsche's views on Christianity here. Nietzsche's point is perhaps best understood not in reference to a kernel of Christian morality in particular, but as that strongest remnant of moral faith remaining in Europe (even if only among a small number of 'free spirits') in the wake of Christianity's decline.

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commanding thought of Kantian morality, and how recognition of the illusoriness of individuation is

the commanding thought of Schopenhauer's ethics of renunciation. Nietzsche claims he paints a more

accurate picture of (Western) morality as it actually exists, insofar as he grounds the 'spiritual tension'

between morality and happiness (on which all three agree, in their common opposition to

eudaemonism/utilitarianism) in historical fact, in particular, in the clash between distinct modes of

behavioural selection, namely, those of natural selection and of socialization. By contrast, Kant and

Schopenhauer base the tension on a problematic – for Nietzsche – dualism of transcendental, or

intelligible, and empirical aspects of human nature.

In this chapter, we've looked in more detail at the sense in which Nietzsche sees the will to truth

as a problem. In particular, I've argued that his concern is not to advance any epistemological doctrine

of (thoroughgoing) perspectivism that would give historical or empirical facts the same interpretive

status, or the same relativity to conceptual frameworks, as the value judgments and moral

interpretations of these facts. I haven't, however, given any sustained or detailed examination of the

perspectival character of such value judgments and interpretations themselves. Nietzsche's genealogical

method emphasizes the importance of historical fact as material and touchstone for the philosophical

interpretation of moral values and value judgments. To this extent, at least, there is a non-perspectival,

or factual basis, for moral philosophical claims. At the most general level of Nietzsche's critique of

morality, we can say, for instance, that fundamental claims regarding moral values and purpose for

human beings must address the distinctively human difficulties and suffering brought on by a clash

between the logic of natural selection and that of socialization.

However, Nietzsche's insistence in several places that 'man is not the measure of things' seems

to suggest an element or certain degree of non-perspectival normativity in the evaluation of the activity

of moral or philosophical interpretation itself. Here, for instance, we would have to consider the sense

in which the 'böse Blick' of Schopenhauer's philosophy, or the ressentiment permeating Christian

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values as characterized in GM, refer to fundamental value judgments. Nietzsche's criticism of

ressentiment is not primarily that it is mistaken about the facts it interprets; in fact, he often insists that

the man of ressentiment is true to the facts in seeing, for instance, life as suffering and impotence to

transform itself into anything positive, self-affirming. Here illness and impotence characterize the very

manner of interpreting life, nature and history. Similarly, Dionysian affirmation and gratitude towards

life, which transform even evil and suffering into goodness and joy, seem to offer positive values that

hold, for Nietzsche, across all moral perspectives, or that underlie value judgments about moral

perspectives themselves.75

This final chapter opens the way to pursuing with greater precision questions about the

perspectival character of Nietzsche's basic categories of values. In particular, I hope to have

distinguished such questions from those regarding Nietzschean perspectivism about empirical and

historical facts. This is not to say that these different sets of questions are unrelated; more needs to be

said in particular about the exact sense in which Nietzsche takes historical fact to guide genealogical or

philosophical interpretation. What I hope to have shown above, however, is that (thoroughgoing)

perspectivist interpretations tend to blur from the outset the distinction, so crucial to Nietzsche,

between the bodies of facts established by science (in the broad sense of the German 'Wissenschaft,'

including, in particular, history) and faith in the value of scientific truth above all else.

Once we lose hold of this distinction, it becomes very difficult to understand Nietzsche's claim,

in the penultimate section of GM, that he raises the problem of unconditional will to truth out of the

will to truth itself, out of a hardened will to truth strong enough to question the faith that has hitherto

sustained it.76 All three thoroughgoing perspectivist interpretations of Nietzsche considered in section

4.3 above, though otherwise very different from one another, run into similar difficulties in interpreting

75 See, e.g., FW §370.76 See, in a similar vein, the Preface to JGB, also the Preface to Morgenröte, where Nietzche claims to withdraw faith in

morality 'out of morality.'

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Nietzsche as a comedian, or in some other sense a mere external critic, of the will to truth. All three

interpretations have Nietzsche questioning the will to truth, not out of the will to truth itself, but out of

a commitment to aesthetic self-creation, or to philosophical struggles and challenges, or to plurality and

human perspectives as the measure of values. Each of these three readings of Nietzsche mistakenly

takes his questioning of the faith in the unconditional value of truth as a questioning of the truth of

particular (historical, scientific or everyday) facts, and imagines that Nietzsche is concerned to

relativize even the latter to particular conceptual frameworks.

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Conclusion

I noted in the introduction that there is an element of provocation in the moral philosophies of

Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Without appeal to religion or tradition, they tell us that, as human

beings, we have a more urgent project than either personal happiness or the happiness of those around

us. They urge us to take sides against ourselves. They urge us, that is, to a formation of character, a

development of self, that is not ultimately guided by or aimed at happiness. Of course, this point should

not be overstated. Clearly, each thinks that there is a kind of happiness, indeed the only kind worth

having, that we create for ourselves precisely by forming our character in line with a 'higher self.'

Conversely, the notions of a higher self and of higher pleasures and happiness are not foreign to

utilitarianism. Mill famously insists on qualitative distinctions between kinds of pleasure, between, in

particular, higher mental pleasures and lower bodily ones. However, in order to remain within the

utilitarian framework, Mill has to hold that what justifies the choice of higher pleasures over lower is,

in the final instance, that the former are greater pleasures, whether the difference is measured

qualitatively or quantitatively. Thus the moral value and the moral goodness of actions still derive

ultimately from the promotion, or tendency to promote, pleasure and happiness. Kant, Schopenhauer

and Nietzsche all deny that the justification for the character formation they urge depends on the

promotion of greater happiness. Rather, insofar as some 'higher happiness' follows, it derives its worth

from the task of self-formation and the values this embodies. Naturally, the difficult questions are: what

is that task and what are these values?

Kant sets the terms of the debate by bringing the opposition between eudaemonism (as he

understands it) and his own moral theory into his account of motivation. He posits two overarching

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principles of choice as governing human agency: the moral law and the principle of happiness, or self-

love. Following the principle of happiness, an agent responds first of all to the inclinations and desires

that are given to him through his sensible nature. He takes the incentives given through these

inclinations as his fundamental reasons for acting, and puts his rational capacities in their service.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing one's inclinations, to adopt the principle of

happiness as overarching life principle is to abdicate the highest dignity and calling of a human being,

namely, to obey the law of our own rational nature and not merely to serve our inclinations and desires.

When we make the moral law our overarching principle of choice, we are no longer moved merely by

external motive forces, no longer merely receptive to feelings of pleasure and pain, but express our

'genuine self' through our actions, and manifest our inner rational character through our sensible nature

itself. The feeling of respect for the moral law produced by my recognition of the moral law as the law

of my genuine self, and therefore as binding on me, is the signal empirical manifestation of my higher

rational self. Here the motive force of my action, the motive feeling, serves my motive of choice, rather

than the other way round. The capacity to thus place my active, rational nature above my receptive,

sensible nature is the ground of human dignity and the ultimate source of all moral worth.

The later sections of chapter 1 turned to Kant's understanding of the philosophical foundation of

this 'moral edifice.' Kant proceeds to give a metaphysical, or critical, interpretation of the account of

motivation he develops in the opening sections of the second Critique. To this end, he relies primarily

on the transcendental idealism of the first Critique, filling in the noumenal 'space left vacant' there with

our capacity, as agents, for rational self-determination. Kant's way of coordinating the conceptions of

freedom from the first two Critiques thus sets the stage for motivation by the inclinations to appear as

something akin to mechanical puppetry. Here the crucial Kantian claim is that, were the inclinations

our only source of motivation, we would, indeed, be no more than mechanical puppets.

Of course, Kant does not think that we are mechanical puppets, not even when we do act on

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inclination. For we always have the capacity, so long as we are in control of our rational faculties, to

choose our actions (to 'determine the will') independently of inclination. There are a number of

difficulties that arise from Kant's attempt to thus coordinate his two Critiques, as we saw in detail in

chapter 1. But we shouldn't think that it's only as a result of this strained attempt that Kant associates

acting from inclination with a kind of passivity. Within Kant's considered account of motivation, apart

from concerns to coordinate with the first Critique, an agent acting from inclination is never reduced to

the utter passivity of a mechanical puppet, but is in an important sense reactive. Acting from

inclination, in contrast to acting from respect for the moral law, means reacting to the representation of

an object or action as pleasurable, by making the representation of it as such the ground for determining

one's will. The agent is here moved by pleasure, even if her deliberations and 'motive of choice' are not

themselves focused on obtaining pleasure.

In other words, Kant's association of acting from inclination with acting 'mechanically' is not

merely the consequence of his trying to coordinate different conceptions of freedom. However, the

deterministic, 'hydraulic' conception of acting from inclination (in the absence of any other source of

motivation) that Kant thereby introduces, creates all kinds of difficulty and inconsistency in the relation

between practical reason and the inclinations. Schopenhauer, otherwise uncharacteristically full of

praise for Kant, is exasperated by Kant's attempts to resolve these difficulties and inconsistencies. He

holds firm to the deterministic model of agency that can be gleaned from certain passages in Kant – not

as Kant's most considered account of motivation, as I've emphasized, but strongly suggested in places

nonetheless. According to this model, all individual agents and their actions in the empirical world are

fully determined by empirical causality.

In the opening sections of chapter 2, I argued that reading Schopenhauer's broader critique of

Kant around this single issue – or, somewhat less narrowly, around the issues at stake in their respective

accounts of motivation – reveals a greater force and coherence than might otherwise be apparent in this

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critique. At the root of Schopenhauer's critique lie a series of questions directed at the Kantian account

of motivation. If desires and inclinations belong to our sensible empirical nature, governed

deterministically by empirical laws, then how, so long as Kant is serious about the non-infringement of

noumenal (or rational) causality on the phenomenal realm, can he deny that our actions from

inclination are fully deterministic? How can he claim that practical reason 'strikes down' the

presumption of the inclinations? How can he insist on conflict between duty and the inclinations, and

on the capacity of practical reason to triumph in such conflict? Is it not fundamental to the

transcendental idealism of the first Critique that the rational order – the lawgiving of our higher

faculties – not interfere in the empirical order it structures, not produce particular, infringing effects in

the empirical world?

Schopenhauer still wants the opposition between eudaemonism and his own ethical ideal to play

out within his account of motivation. Unlike Kant, however, he doesn't think this opposition can play

out within the confines of individual agency. Precisely as an individual, under the illusion of

individuation, each of us is determined to pursue satisfaction of our desires, governed in that pursuit by

the law of our character, as strictly as a stone is determined to fall by the laws of physical motion and

gravity. Human reason admittedly widens the field in which motives can act on our character, giving us

the capacity to consider alternative courses of action and to calculate consequences. But reason can

never of itself produce or strike down a desire, cannot thus impinge upon or interfere with the effects,

the actions, that follow from given motives, according the laws of our individual characters. For

Schopenhauer, then, the opposition between eudaemonism and his own ethical ideal plays out as the

conflict between the perspective of the individual and that of the 'pure knowing subject.'

For the agent to truly overcome her merely eudaemonistic tendencies thus becomes a task of

cosmic proportions. The entire empirical world is the manifestation of the longing for satisfaction, for

the quenching of desire, all governed by the strict determinism of natural laws. A 'cosmic

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eudaemonism' reigns, according to which the blind striving of will underwrites causal necessity itself,

'glues' every effect to its cause. The ethical task for the individual is to free herself from this cosmic

eudaemonism, which is only possible if she frees herself from the perspective in which individual

existence has fundamental reality. In somewhat less apocalyptic terms, she must learn to see through

the illusion that her own wants and desires are somehow unique, that she should care any more for their

satisfaction than for the satisfaction of the desires of others. In other words, she should feel compassion

for others. Compassion is the usual manifestation of insight into the illusion of individuation. However,

raised to a 'high degree of clarity,' this intuitive knowledge reveals the inner suffering equally present in

all willing, and recommends the renunciation of desire, of the body and the ego that bind one to

existence as an individual.

Although Schopenhauer describes the achievement of this highest ethical task largely in

negative terms, suggesting complete passivity – resignation, renunciation, withdrawal from stimulation,

from desire – it is also the only point at which any of us can put a stop to our 'deterministic passivity'

with respect to the endless striving of the will. Only the pure knowing subject is unmoved by the

motive forces that deceptively promise satisfaction. Only the perspective of the pure knowing subject

produces a motive force through genuine insight. For compassion is insight into the inner reality of the

will and the entire empirical world that is its 'representation.' To this extent, then, the movement

towards a higher self does take place within the individual, to the extent, namely, that the individual

begins to detach herself from the illusion that her individuality defines her true nature, her 'inner' being.

Schopenhauer, like Kant, therefore understands a crucial part of freedom to be the spontaneity

of our higher faculties with respect to our sensible receptivity to pleasure and pain. This spontaneity is

neither divorced from nor indifferent to our sensible nature, for both Kant and Schopenhauer argue that

it produces a particular feeling as its necessary sensible correlate. The Kantian feeling of respect for the

moral law can only be understood as the consequence or expression of a rational agent's recognition of

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the moral law, i.e., her cognition of what the moral law demands as her duty. Conversely, we only

arrive at a (practical) cognition of our freedom (as self-legislators of the moral law) through the feeling

of respect that recognition of the law arouses in us. Similarly, for Schopenhauer, compassion is the only

motive force that does not remain (at least partly) external to the agent's cognition of the ultimate goal

driving every action. In all other cases, the agent is moved to a particular object or action under the

illusion that it promises the satisfaction he really wants. The motive force is in such cases always the

longing for satisfaction, though the motive of choice takes on an endless variety of forms in pursuit of

this underlying aim. Compassion, however, does not move the agent under the spell of some illusion.

Schopenhauer ties the very meaning of compassion to cognition of the true inner nature of will, as Kant

ties the meaning of respect to recognition of the will's own moral commandments. The motive force in

each case, i.e., the moral feeling, expresses the commanding moral thought.

Nietzsche's account of motivation differs radically from those offered by Kant and

Schopenhauer, but he seizes on the idea that feelings and affects express 'commanding thoughts' in acts

of will, and conversely that the will's 'commanding thoughts' produce effects on our sensible nature.

Commanding thoughts organize and transform drives, instincts, desires, and the relationships between

them. The striving towards such organization and transformation Nietzsche calls will to power.

Nietzsche in fact generalizes this tie between affects, drives and feelings, on the one hand, and

commanding thoughts, on the other. Commanding thoughts – including guiding moral principles – and

the affects and drives they command, are always mutually illuminating: neither can be understood apart

from the other. The idea that pleasure and aversion to pain are, as such, what move us to particular

choices and actions is based on a superficial view of motivation and agency.

Nietzsche's account of motivation here is greatly influenced by his understanding of Darwin and

of our evolutionary past. His key insight that consciousness could only develop as a 'tool,' an 'organ,' of

the body leads Nietzsche to reject the idea that the purpose, the motive, the end of an action are to be

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understood entirely from the perspective of consciousness, i.e., of conscious intention, deliberation,

reflection, introspection, etc. The drives and instincts evolved in our animal prehistory developed

specific goals and purposes given only indirectly to consciousness, and only to the extent that this

proved evolutionary advantageous. Though we inevitably think of ourselves primarily in terms of our

conscious desires, goals, wants, needs, aversions, fears, hopes, etc., these are only oblique reflections of

the drives and instincts – and of their 'purposes' – that were formed through natural selection. Obtaining

pleasure and avoiding pain could never have evolved as drives with no further aim, i.e., without being

subservient to other drives; the real character and significance of any given longing for pleasure or

aversion to pain will therefore depend on the nature of the drives and instincts underlying such longing

or aversion.

The second key element of Nietzsche's account of motivation is his claim of a fundamental

clash between the behavioural selection resulting from the logic of natural selection and the

behavioural selection resulting from the processes of socialization, beginning with the transition to

settled, law-governed societies. The behavioural selection at work in socialization does focus on the

affects, feelings, drives, desires, calculations, etc., as manifested in consciousness; the transition to law-

governed society 'reduces' humans to their 'weakest and most fallible organ' – consciousness.

Consciousness is henceforth the site of repression, redirection, control of various drives and instincts.

Nietzsche argues that this 'internalization' of our animal nature created the first great expansion of the

human being's inner, 'spiritual' world, and the beginning of the human being's work on itself, the first

attempts by human beings at shaping human nature.

Here Nietzsche argues that it's not only superficial to think that we have basic drives towards

pleasure and away from pain, but false even on its own terms. The internalization of our animal drives

included the internalization of violent instincts that take joy in inflicting pain on others, leaving us with

an unmistakable, if deeply conflicted, drive to inflict pain on ourselves. Nietzsche makes two points in

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response to the suggestion that all of this sounds rather dramatic and sadistic. First, he asks us to note

the actual historical record on forms of punishment and on the often festive atmosphere that surrounded

torture and public executions. That we are now repelled by this record doesn't change the fact that it

preserves in clear, if now repugnant, detail a major element of human history and human nature – and

one that has hardly disappeared; the drive to inflict pain is deeply rooted in human nature. Second, an

important part of Nietzsche's account is that the brutality of many drives has become refined, or

'sublimated,' without the underlying character being erased. This is particularly true of internalized

drives, and of the drive to inflict pain on oneself in particular. As noted earlier, we can hardly imagine a

religion commanding its followers' devotion without some central notion of sacrifice, of commitment

in the face of one's own contrary wishes and desires, of, that is, 'suffering.'

Granted, the forms of suffering demanded in the name of religion have become greatly

attenuated in the modern world, a development undoubtedly welcome in many respects. The question

that Nietzsche so provocatively asks is whether such change is welcome in every respect. Do we want

to go as far as, e.g., current 'prosperity' interpretations of religion, which reassure followers that little

more is asked of them than material comfort and wealth? Do we want to ask of ourselves only

maximum satisfaction of desires, in contribution to both individual and general happiness, only

maximum comfort out of life? While a defender of utilitarianism might fairly respond that such

rhetorical questions touch only a distorted version of utilitarianism, premised on 'lower desires,' the

questions nonetheless convey something of Nietzsche's indignation at the idea of placing maximization

of happiness at the heart of moral philosophy. His more 'sober' – less rhetorical – criticisms are

grounded, as indicated in the previous paragraphs and as examined in chapter 3, in the charges of

superficiality and falsity he aims at the utilitarian account of agency and motivation.

Nietzsche shifts the rejection of utilitarianism away from the picture of two distinct, competing

aspects of human agency, with one aspect grounded in our empirical, sensible nature and the other in

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pure reason or pure knowing. While this shift may be appealing to our 21st century philosophical

sensibilities, it raises serious questions for Nietzsche's overall project. For both Kant and

Schopenhauer, the higher self to which we ought to strive is fairly fixed, and its opposition to our

'merely sensible' nature fairly clear. Nietzsche may have a more convincing, or at least more

historically and factually grounded, account of the tension in human agency – of the joy in sacrifice, in

self-denial and self-formation (so long as we believe in a meaning for our suffering). His genealogy

offers an empirical, historical account of how humans could ever have taken over from nature the

project of forming human nature, of how we could ever have acquired the creative distance from

ourselves, the creative tension and power to want to mould ourselves according to ideals, to strive for a

transformation of human nature. By the same token, however, this genealogical approach leaves us

somewhat perplexed at just what kind of ideals we should be aiming for, what kind of principles should

guide our 'projects of self-creation,' both as individuals and as societies.

These questions start to press beyond the scope of this thesis, whose purpose is to explain the

oppositions of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to utilitarianism. However, I think an important

upshot of the discussion in the preceding chapters is that it gives us a substantial framework in which to

understand the concerns to which Nietzsche sees himself as responding. It's no secret that his

philosophy offers no clear moral formula, in the style of a Kantian categorical imperative, or a

Schopenhauerean call to renunciation. We've seen, however, that Nietzsche carefully addresses what he

takes to be the defining crisis of human nature, how he traces its origins and important transformations,

and how he understands its relation to the modern world (or, at least, the modern western world). Moral

thought must respond, for Nietzsche, to the tension in human nature that has grown out of competing

modes of behavioural selection, and that continues to haunt us today. This is the crisis of human nature,

according to Nietzsche. It has led major strands of religious thought and practice to direct spirit-rending

disgust, contempt, shame, even hatred, at human nature itself. As Nietzsche suggests, if animals could

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talk, they would surely remark on the frightening anti-naturalness of human nature.

Nietzsche himself registers occasional bewilderment and 'sea-sickness' arising from protracted

reflection on the darker aspects of human nature. Maybe it shouldn't be a ground of criticism that he

doesn't aim to capture his response in any clear or simple moral formula. After all, a major element in

his criticism of utilitarianism is precisely that it offers only a superficial and facile response to the

questions and concerns that a genealogy of morals uncovers.

That being said, if we are to evaluate those elements of Nietzsche's philosophy that provide

some response to these questions and concerns, it's all the more necessary to have a firm grasp on his

understanding of these genealogical questions and concerns themselves. Nietzsche's discussions of the

place of art, of politics, of the emergence of the individual (especially in negotiating the conflict

between modes of behavioural selection), of women, of education, of friendship, of science, and so on,

cannot properly be understood in isolation from what he sees as the defining crisis of human nature.

This isn't to say that his discussions of these topics must all be construed narrowly in relation to this

one issue, but where the aim is to interpret Nietzsche, the moral-genealogical questions and concerns

highlighted here provide crucial context. As Nietzsche himself insists, its moral – 'or immoral' –

impulses constitute the liferoots of every great philosophy.1

1 JGB §6.

292

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